Using Amazon Web Services With PHP And SOAP (part 2) - Drilling Deeper
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AWS also allows you to look for items in specific categories, supporting searches by author, actor, artist and manufacturer. Here's a list of the relevant methods:
AuthorSearchRequest() - search by author;
ArtistSearchRequest() - search by artist or musician;
ActorSearchRequest() - search by actor or actress;
DirectorSearchRequest() - search by director;
ManufacturerSearchRequest() - search by product manufacturer;
With methods like these, it's easy to build a more powerful search engine for your store. Take a look:
<html>
<head>
<basefont face="Verdana">
</head>
<body bgcolor="white">
<p> <p>
<table
width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="Navy"><font
color="white"
size="-1"><b>Search</b></font></td>
<td bgcolor="Navy"
align="right"><font color="white"
size="-1"><b><? echo date("d M Y",
mktime());?></b></font></td> </tr>
</table>
<p>
<?
if (!$_POST['q'])
{
?>
Select
a category and enter a search term:
<form method="post" action="<? echo
$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>"> <select
name="type">
<option value="author">Author</option>
<option value="artist">Artist</option>
<option value="actor">Actor</option>
<option value="director">Director</option>
<option value="manufacturer">Manufacturer</option>
</select>
<input
type="text" name="q">
</form>
<?
}
else
{
$type = $_POST['type'];
// include
class
include("nusoap.php");
// create a instance of the SOAP client object
$soapclient
= new
soapclient("http://soap.amazon.com/schemas2/AmazonWebServices.wsdl",
true);
//
create a proxy so that WSDL methods can be accessed directly
$proxy = $soapclient->getProxy();
//
set up an array containing input parameters to be
// passed to the remote procedure
//
use a switch loop to define the search parameters for each type
switch ($type)
{
case
"author":
$mode = "books";
$func = "AuthorSearchRequest";
break;
case
"artist":
$mode = "music";
$func = "ArtistSearchRequest";
break;
case
"actor":
$mode = "vhs";
$func = "ActorSearchRequest";
break;
case "director":
$mode
= "vhs";
$func = "DirectorSearchRequest";
break;
case "manufacturer":
$mode
= "electronics";
$func = "ManufacturerSearchRequest";
break;
}
$params =
array(
$type => htmlentities($_POST['q']),
'page'
=> 1,
'mode' => $mode,
'tag' => 'melonfire-20',
'type' => 'lite',
'devtag' => 'YOUR-TOKEN-HERE'
);
// invoke
the method
$result = $proxy->$func($params);
$total = $result['TotalResults'];
$items
= $result['Details'];
// format and display the results
?>
Your search for <b><?
echo $_POST['q']; ?></b> returned <? echo $total;
?> matches.
<p>
<table
width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="5" cellpadding="0"> <?
// parse the $items[]
array and extract the necessary information
foreach ($items as $i)
{
?>
<tr>
<td
align="center" valign="top" rowspan="3"><a href="<? echo $i['Url'];
?>"><img
border="0" src=<? echo $i['ImageUrlSmall']; ?>></a></td>
<td><font
size="-1"><b><? echo $i['ProductName']; ?></b> /
<?
if (is_array($i['Authors']))
{
echo implode(", ", $i['Authors']);
}
else if (is_array($i['Artists']))
{
echo implode(", ", $i['Artists']);
}
else if ($i['Manufacturer'])
{
echo
$i['Manufacturer'];
}?>
</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left"
valign="top"><font size="-1">List Price: <? echo
$i['ListPrice']; ?> / Amazon.com
Price: <? echo $i['OurPrice'];
?></font></td> </tr> <tr> <td
align="left" valign="top"><font
size="-1"><a href="<? echo $i['Url'];
?>">Read more about this title on
Amazon.com</a></font></td> </tr>
<tr> <td colspan=2> </td> </tr> <?
} ?> </table>
<?
}
?>
</body>
</html>
In this case, I've simply added a new item to my search form - a drop-down list
containing a list of the categories to search in. Each of these categories corresponds to one of the AWS methods listed above, and my PHP form processor uses a "switch" statement to call the appropriate method and pass it the search keywords. The result is then processed in the usual way, and formatted for display to the user.
Here are a couple of screenshots demonstrating how this works:
Next: Riding The Popularity Metrics >>
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