Import API performance: Importing 'nothing' takes 5 seconds

Context

I’m trying to create an easy, programmatic way to create a table on CARTO that’s builder friendly and engine friendly (for use in cartoframes), so I tried a function like this out:

import requests
import time

APIKEY = 'abcdefg'

def _table_touch(table_name, schema):
    resp = requests.post(
        'https://andycopy2.carto-staging.com/api/v1/imports',
        params={'sql': 'SELECT {} LIMIT 0'.format(schema), 'table_name': table_name, 'api_key': APIKEY}
    )
    while True:
        r = requests.get(
            'https://andycopy2.carto-staging.com/api/v1/imports/{}'.format(resp.json()['item_queue_id']),
            params={'api_key': APIKEY}
        )
        if r.json()['state'] == 'complete':
            break
        elif r.json()['state'] == 'failure':
            raise Exception(str(r))
        time.sleep(0.1)
    return r.json()['table_name']

This create a table with a specific schema and a specific name using the Import API’s sql and table_name args. The problem is it takes ~4-10+ seconds to create a table with no rows. I would expect this type of operation to be on the order of 0.5 seconds instead.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Update that script above with an API key and correct base url
2. Run it with a custom table name and ‘schema’ like so:

   schema = 'null::numeric as mag, null::text as place, null::text as net, null::numeric as depth, null::text as id, null::numeric as longitude, null::numeric as latitude, null::text as magtype, null::numeric as rms'
   t_start = time.time()
   _table_touch('abcdefghij', schema)
   print(time.time() - t_start)
   

3. Observe the time to create the table (in my tests ~4-10+ seconds)

Current Result

Creating a table with no rows over the Import API takes ~5 seconds

Expected result

That creating a table with no rows would only take a small fraction of a second

Browser and version

n/a

.carto file

n/a

Additional info

nope, thanks

cc @pramsey

[pramsey]

There needs to be a fast, reliable, programmatic way to create a table that is registered to the UI, to support CartoFrames and anyone else who wants to bring data automatically. Otherwise the data is imported but users cannot tell, as it doesn’t show up in the UI until (pages are refreshed|a timer tickets over|something).

[rafatower]

I’d think about this request in the lights of a new dashboard vs editor/builder, plus the ability to instantiate maps (isn’t that right, @andy-esch ?) , @inigomedina and @rochoa