Weapon Of Choice - PHP

In addition to the BrowseNodeSearchRequest() call, which is kinda like a shotgun, AWS also allows you to laser in on a specific item via the ASINSearchRequest() method, which accepts an ASIN - Amazon's unique code for each product - and returns information on the corresponding item. Consider the following example, which demonstrates:

<?php
// include class
include("nusoap.php");
// create a instance of the SOAP client object
$soapclient = new
soapclient("http://soap.amazon.com/schemas2/AmazonWebServices.wsdl",
true);
// uncomment the next line to see debug messages
// $soapclient->debug_flag = 1;
// create a proxy so that WSDL methods can be accessed directly
$proxy = $soapclient->getProxy();
// set up an array containing input parameters to be
// passed to the remote procedure
$params = array(
'asin'        => sprintf("%010d", $_GET['asin']),
'tag'         => 'melonfire-20',
'type'        => 'heavy',
'devtag'      => 'YOUR-TOKEN-HERE'
);
// invoke the method 
$result = $proxy->ASINSearchRequest($params);
if($result['faultstring'])
{ 
echo $result['faultstring'];
}  
else
{
$items = $result['Details'];
// print the result
print_r($result);
}
?>

Note the difference in the arguments passed to the method call - instead of a "browse_node" argument, this method used the "asin" argument, which specifies the ASIN to search for. This ASIN must be provided to the script above via the URL GET method, like this:

http://your.server/asin.script.php?asin=0735712271

Here's what the output of the script above looks like:

Array
(
[Details] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[Url] =>
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=melonfire-20%26creative=Y
OUR-
TOKEN-HERE%26camp=2025%26link_code=sp1%26path=ASIN/0735712271
[Asin] => 735712271
[ProductName] => XML and PHP
[Catalog] => Book
[Authors] => Array
(
[0] => Vikram Vaswani
)
[ReleaseDate] => 15 July, 2002
[Manufacturer] => New Riders Publishing
[ImageUrlSmall] =>
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0735712271.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg
[ImageUrlMedium] =>
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0735712271.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg
[ImageUrlLarge] =>
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0735712271.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
[ListPrice] => $39.99
[OurPrice] => $27.99
[UsedPrice] => $21.5
[ThirdPartyNewPrice] => $25.14
[SalesRank] => 29,310
[BrowseList] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => XML (Document markup
language)
)
[1] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => PHP (Computer
program language
)
[2] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Computer Programming
Languages
)
[3] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Computer Networks
)
[4] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Computer Bks -
Languages / Programming
)
[5] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Computers
)
[6] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Programming
Languages - XML
)
[7] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Programming -
General
)
[8] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Programming
Languages - General
)
[9] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Programming
Languages - HTML
)
[10] => Array
(
[BrowseName] => Internet - General
)
)
[Media] => Paperback
[NumMedia] => 1
[Isbn] => 735712271
[Availability] => Usually ships within 24 hours
[Reviews] => Array
(
[AvgCustomerRating] => 3.8
[CustomerReviews] => Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[Rating] => 5
[Summary] => Lots Of Good
Content, Examples
[Comment] => i have bought
both the wrox book and this one and much prefer this one. while the wrox
book is good, i find this one to be much easier to understand, and to
use as a base for my own projects. i am building an XML-based
transaction server, and the chapters on DOM, WDDX and SOAP were very
useful, as i was able to use some of the code from the book in my
project without any difficulty. also i appreciated the chapters on using
open-source alternatives to the built-in functions (this is again not
available in wrox, which also tended to be infuriatingly vague at
certain points). 
if you are a serious developer, i would recommend
buying both books - i refer to both the wrox book and this one since
neither one is exhaustive - but i learnt more from this one, as it is
written in a clearer manner.
)
[1] => Array
(
[Rating] => 2
[Summary] => A questionable
book...
[Comment] => After all the
flaky reviews this book has received, I was unsure if I was reading
individual marketing campaigns sponsored by the various publishers or
actual reviews. It seems that people cannot simply agree that this book
is good or is bad as there is just nothing in between. Even in all the
review cases, many people didn't find the reviews helpful, both positive
and negative. It all seems complex from the consumer's perspective when
deciding to buy this book. 
So given all these statements, I thought
I'd present a true review - one from an actual reader rather than from
someone else. I think it's pretty safe to assume that this book is good
for some people and bad for others. The problem is that the reviews
already here have so much fluff that they didn't even begin to describe
themselves, thus they could be ambitious or lazy, smart or dim, and
hobbyist or entrepreneurs. There is simply no way of telling.
Personally, I think many of these concepts can be learned in PHP in
about 2-3 days of trying the APIs out if you already know a great deal
of XML. So if I'm going to buy a book on PHP and XML, I expect that it
will provided added value information as well as design decisions,
business concerns and best practices. Examples are not what I care about
as much as the rich and deep information because there are many examples
already on the web - no point acquiring the book just for those alone.
That makes me question the reviewers who say the examples are clear and
concise - the examples on the web already do that. Books are supposed to
provide added value to these APIs and examples to make the topic
complete and valuable to the reader. The book should also scale well to
both beginning audiences (this book does very well) to expert audiences
that want to drill through the basic information like APIs and examples
and learn more advanced techniques, best practices, etc. This book
doesn't deliver on these areas very well unfortunately. 
So, for a
person like me: This book receives 2 stars. I didn't learn all that much
from it and I was disappointed to say the least. He's a good writer,
funny at times, and knows what he is doing, but he also catered to a
specific audience and it shows. Is that the goal? Probably. But I think
the expert people shouldn't have expected too much (as I did) - that's
the truth. 
Although I personally give this book 2 stars, I believe
that many beginner PHP programmers who have a little idea to what XML is
will benefit from it. If you've already read some XML material on the
net and even read a book or two, this book won't exactly help you out
too much. However, this segment is rather small I would believe. I'm
still looking for a book that I can give to my employees for reference
as well as added value information. When I find it, I'll put a review
there as well so you can compare.
So there you have it - an honest
review. I hope it helps people out in their purchasing decisions.
)
[2] => Array
(
[Rating] => 4
[Summary] => One of the best
XML and PHP titles
[Comment] => Most XML books
suffer from painful verbosity. Useful information on a relatively simple
subject tends to be hidden in drifts of useless cruft.
This book
focuses on the core information needed to become competent using XML and
PHP together. While it is not the most comprehensive reference on XML
available, it is the first resource that I check.
(Disclosure: I
worked on this book project as a technical reviewer - take what I say
with your own grain of salt. :)
)
)
)
[SimilarProducts] => Array
(
[0] => 1861007213
[1] => 1861006918
[2] => 073570970X
[3] => 672317842
[4] => 1565926102
)
)
)
)

Wondering how I got so much extra data this time? That's because I told AWS I wanted the "heavy" form of the data, not the "lite" one I've been using thus far.

In case you're curious, yes, I've used the sprintf() function call to reformat the ASIN to a ten-character zero-padded string. This is because AWS will return an error if the ASIN passed to it in a method call is less than ten characters in length.

>>> More PHP Articles          >>> More By icarus, (c) Melonfire

blog comments powered by Disqus