###################################################################### Net::Amazon 0.15 ###################################################################### NAME Net::Amazon - Framework for accessing amazon.com via SOAP and XML/HTTP SYNOPSIS use Net::Amazon; my $ua = Net::Amazon->new(token => 'YOUR_AMZN_TOKEN'); # Get a request object my $response = $ua->search(asin => '0201360683'); if($response->is_success()) { print $response->as_string(), "\n"; } else { print "Error: ", $response->message(), "\n"; } ABSTRACT Net::Amazon provides an object-oriented interface to amazon.com's SOAP and XML/HTTP interfaces. This way it's possible to create applications using Amazon's vast amount of data via a functional interface, without having to worry about the underlying communication mechanism. DESCRIPTION "Net::Amazon" works very much like "LWP": First you define a useragent like my $ua = Net::Amazon->new( token => 'YOUR_AMZN_TOKEN', max_pages => 3, ); which you pass your personal amazon developer's token (can be obtained from ) and (optionally) the maximum number of result pages the agent is going to request from Amazon in case all results don't fit on a single page (typically holding 20 items). According to the different search methods on Amazon, there's a bunch of different request types in "Net::Amazon". The user agent's convenience method "search()" triggers different request objects, depending on which parameters you pass to it: "$ua->search(asin => "0201360683")" The "asin" parameter has Net::Amazon search for an item with the specified ASIN. Returns at most one result. "$ua->search(artist => "Rolling Stones")" The "artist" parameter has the user agent search for items created by the specified artist. Can return many results. "$ua->search(browsenode=>"4025", mode=>"books" [, keywords=>"perl"])" Returns a list of items by category ID (node). For example node "4025" is the CGI books category. You can add a keywords parameter to filter the results by that keyword. "$ua->search(keyword => "perl xml", mode => "books")" Search by keyword, mandatory parameters "keyword" and "mode". Can return many results. "$ua->search(wishlist => "1XL5DWOUFMFVJ")" Search for all items in a specified wishlist. Can return many results. "$ua->search(upc => "075596278324", mode => "music")" Music search by UPC (product barcode), mandatory parameter "upc". "mode" has to be set to "music". Returns at most one result. "$ua->search(similar => "0201360683")" Search for all items similar to the one represented by the ASIN provided. Can return many results. "$ua->search(power => "subject: perl and author: schwartz", mode => "books")" Initiate a power search for all books matching the power query. Can return many results. See Net::Amazon::Request::Power for details. The user agent's "search" method returns a response object, which can be checked for success or failure: if($resp->is_success()) { print $resp->as_string(); } else { print "Error: ", $resp->message(), "\n"; } In case the request succeeds, the response contains one or more Amazon 'properties', as it calls the products found. All matches can be retrieved from the Response object using it's "properties()" method. Response objects always have the methods "is_success()", "is_error()", "message()", "as_string()" and "properties()" available. "properties()" returns one or more "Net::Amazon::Property" objects of type "Net::Amazon::Property" (or one of its subclasses like "Net::Amazon::Property::Book", "Net::Amazon::Property::Music" or Net::Amazon::Property::DVD), each of which features accessors named after the attributes of the product found in Amazon's database: for ($resp->properties) { print $_->Asin(), " ", $_->OurPrice(), "\n"; } Also the specialized classes "Net::Amazon::Property::Book" and "Net::Amazon::Property::Music" feature convenience methods like "authors()" (returning the list of authors of a book) or "album()" for CDs, returning the album title. Customer reviews: Every property features a "review_set()" method which returns a "Net::Amazon::Attribute::ReviewSet" object, which in turn offers a list of "Net::Amazon::Attribute::Review" objects. Check the respective man pages for details on what's available. Requests behind the scenes "Net::Amazon"'s "search()" method is just a convenient way to create different kinds of request objects behind the scenes and trigger them to send requests to Amazon. Depending on the parameters fed to the "search" method, "Net::Amazon" will determine the kind of search requested and create one of the following request objects: Net::Amazon::Request::ASIN Search by ASIN, mandatory parameter "asin". Returns at most one result. Net::Amazon::Request::Artist Music search by Artist, mandatory parameter "artist". Can return many results. Net::Amazon::Request::BrowseNode Returns category (node) listing. Mandatory parameters "browsenode" (must be numeric) and "mode". Can return many results. Net::Amazon::Request::Keyword Keyword search, mandatory parameters "keyword" and "mode". Can return many results. Net::Amazon::Request::UPC Music search by UPC (product barcode), mandatory parameter "upc". "mode" has to be set to "music". Returns at most one result. Check the respective man pages for details on these request objects. Request objects are typically created like this (with a Keyword query as an example): my $req = Net::Amazon::Request::Keyword->new( keyword => 'perl', mode => 'books', ); and are handed over to the user agent like that: # Response is of type Net::Amazon::Response::ASIN my $resp = $ua->request($req); The convenient "search()" method just does these two steps in one. METHODS $ua = Net::Amazon->new(token => $token, ...) Create a new Net::Amazon useragent. $token is the value of the mandatory Amazon developer's token, which can be obtained from . Additional optional parameters: "max_pages => $max_pages" sets how many result pages the module is supposed to fetch back from Amazon, which only sends back 10 results per page. "affiliate_id => $affiliate_id" your Amazon affiliate ID, if you have one. It defaults to "webservices-20" which is currently (as of 06/2003) required by Amazon. "$resp = $ua->request($request)" Sends a request to the Amazon web service. $request is of a "Net::Amazon::Request::*" type and $response will be of the corresponding "Net::Amazon::Response::*" type. Accessing foreign Amazon Catalogs As of this writing (07/2003), Amazon also offers its web service for the UK, Germany, and Japan. Just pass in locale => 'uk' locale => 'de' locale => 'jp' respectively to "Net::Amazon"'s constructor "new()" and instead of returning results sent by the US mothership, it will query the particular country's catalog and show prices in (gack!) local currencies. EXAMPLE Here's a full-fledged example doing a artist search: use Net::Amazon; use Net::Amazon::Request::Artist; use Data::Dumper; die "usage: $0 artist\n(use Zwan as an example)\n" unless defined $ARGV[0]; my $ua = Net::Amazon->new( token => 'YOUR_AMZN_TOKEN', ); my $req = Net::Amazon::Request::Artist->new( artist => $ARGV[0], ); # Response is of type Net::Amazon::Artist::Response my $resp = $ua->request($req); if($resp->is_success()) { print $resp->as_string, "\n"; } else { print $resp->message(), "\n"; } And here's one displaying someone's wishlist: use Net::Amazon; use Net::Amazon::Request::Wishlist; die "usage: $0 wishlist_id\n" . "(use 1XL5DWOUFMFVJ as an example)\n" unless $ARGV[0]; my $ua = Net::Amazon->new( token => 'YOUR_AMZN_TOKEN', ); my $req = Net::Amazon::Request::Wishlist->new( id => $ARGV[0] ); # Response is of type Net::Amazon::ASIN::Response my $resp = $ua->request($req); if($resp->is_success()) { print $resp->as_string, "\n"; } else { print $resp->message(), "\n"; } CACHING Responses returned by Amazon's web service can be cached locally. "Net::Amazon"'s "new" method accepts a reference to a "Cache" object. "Cache" (or one of its companions like "Cache::Memory", "Cache::File", etc.) can be downloaded from CPAN, please check their documentation for details. In fact, any other type of cache implementation will do as well, see the requirements below. Here's an example utilizing a file cache which causes "Net::Amazon" to cache responses for 30 minutes: use Cache::File; my $cache = Cache::File->new( cache_root => '/tmp/mycache', default_expires => '30 min', ); my $ua = Net::Amazon->new( token => 'YOUR_AMZN_TOKEN', cache => $cache, ); "Net::Amazon" uses *positive* caching only, errors won't be cached. Erroneous requests will be sent to Amazon every time. Positive cache entries are keyed by the full URL used internally by requests submitted to Amazon. Caching isn't limited to the "Cache" class. Any cache object which adheres to the following interface can be used: # Set a cache value $cache->set($key, $value); # Return a cached value, 'undef' if it doesn't exist $cache->get($key); DEBUGGING If something's going wrong and you want more verbosity, just bump up "Net::Amazon"'s logging level. "Net::Amazon" comes with "Log::Log4perl" statements embedded, which are disabled by default. However, if you initialize "Log::Log4perl", e.g. like use Net::Amazon; use Log::Log4perl qw(:easy); Log::Log4perl->easy_init($DEBUG); my Net::Amazon->new(); # ... you'll see what's going on behind the scenes, what URLs the module is requesting from Amazon and so forth. Log::Log4perl allows all kinds of fancy stuff, like writing to a file or enabling verbosity in certain parts only -- check http://log4perl.sourceforge.net for details. LIVE TESTING Results returned by Amazon can be incomplete or simply wrong at times, due to their "best effort" design of the service. This is why the test suite that comes with this module has been changed to perform its test cases against canned data. If you want to perform the tests against the live Amazon servers instead, just set the environment variable NET_AMAZON_LIVE_TESTS=1 WHY ISN'T THERE SUPPORT FOR METHOD XYZ? Because nobody wrote it yet. If Net::Amazon doesn't yet support a method advertised on Amazon's web service, you could help us out. Net::Amazon has been designed to be expanded over time, usually it only takes a couple of lines to support a new method, the rest is done via inheritance within Net::Amazon. Here's the basic plot: * Get Net::Amazon from CVS. Use cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/Net-Amazon login cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/Net-Amazon co Net-Amazon If this doesn't work (and it didn't work at the time of this writing), just use the latest distribution from net-amazon.sourceforge.net. * Write a new Net::Amazon::Request::XYZ package, start with this template ###################################### package Net::Amazon::Request::XYZ; ###################################### use base qw(Net::Amazon::Request); ###################################### sub new { ###################################### my($class, %options) = @_; if(!exists $options{XYZ_option}) { die "Mandatory parameter 'XYZ_option' not defined"; } my $self = $class->SUPER::new(%options); bless $self, $class; # reconsecrate } and add documentation. Then, create a new Net::Amazon::Response::XYZ module: ############################## package Net::Amazon::Response; ############################## use base qw(Net::Amazon::Response); use Net::Amazon::Property; ############################## sub new { ############################## my($class, %options) = @_; my $self = $class->SUPER::new(%options); bless $self, $class; # reconsecrate } and also add documentation to it. Then, add the line use Net::Amazon::Request::XYZ; to Net/Amazon.pm. And that's it! Again, don't forget the *add documentation* part. Modules without documentation are of no use to anybody but yourself. Check out the different Net::Amazon::Request::* and Net::Amazon::Response modules in the distribution if you need to adapt your new module to fulfil any special needs, like a different Amazon URL or a different way to handle the as_string() method. Also, post and problems you might encounter to the mailing list, we're gonna help you out. If possible, provide a test case for your extension. When finished, send a patch to the mailing list at net-amazon-devel@lists.sourceforge.net and if it works, I'll accept it and will work it into the main distribution. Your name will show up in the contributor's list below (unless you tell me otherwise). INSTALLATION "Net::Amazon" depends on Log::Log4perl, which can be pulled from CPAN by simply saying perl -MCPAN -eshell 'install Log::Log4perl' Also, it needs XML::Simple 2.x, which can be obtained in a similar way. Once all dependencies have been resolved, "Net::Amazon" installs with the typical sequence perl Makefile.PL make make test make install Make sure you're connected to the Internet while running "make test" because it will actually contact amazon.com and run a couple of live tests. The module's distribution tarball and documentation are available at http://perlmeister.com/devel/#amzn and on CPAN. SEE ALSO CONTACT The "Net::Amazon" project's home page is hosted on http://net-amazon.sourceforge.net where you can find documentation, news and the latest development and stable releases for download. If you have questions about how to use "Net::Amazon", want to report a bug or just participate in its development, please send a message to the mailing list net-amazon-devel@lists.sourceforge.net AUTHOR Mike Schilli, (Please contact me via the mailing list: net-amazon-devel@lists.sourceforge.net ) Contributors (thanks y'all!): Barnaby Claydon Dan Sully Jackie Hamilton Konstantin Gredeskoul Martha Greenberg Martin Streicher Mike Evron Tony Bowden COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright 2003 by Mike Schilli This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.