How to Simulate Long HTTP Requests

It happens less frequently these days but there are times when we need to accommodate for a HTTP request timing out. The service could be down, under heavy traffic, or just poorly coded, or any host of other issues.

Whenever I need to simulate a long HTTP request, I use a bit of PHP to make it happen:

<?php
        // Don't resolve this request for 5 seconds
        sleep(5);
        
        // A generic response
        echo 'This is the response!';

        // ... or hit a URL to make the case more realistic
        echo file_get_contents('https://website.tld/endpoint');
?>

With that script created, I make PHP start a server so I can make the request locally:

php -S localhost:8000

Now I can hit http://localhost:8000 and get the long request I want!

There are a number of ways you can accomplish these long form requests but this has always been a favorite of mine!