Amazon Product Ads, is there an API to search for Categories?

Question

I'm building a module that will help seller put their products catalogue in the Amazon Product Ads service. For that, I need to make a mapping between the client's category and the Amazon Product Ads categories.

Problem is, I can't find an API that will help me search for Categories, or a file containing all the existing categories for Amazon Product Ads.

I found that link http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/BrowseNodeIDs.html, that may be a start, but based on their API, it's not possible to search by text (like "Apparel") but by NodeId, which is not what I'm looking for :/

Can anyone of you help me please?

Thank you for your help :)

Answer 1

You have to use Browse Node Id of parent categories and bases on that you can search for sub categories.

Create a file named amazon_api_class.php

<?php

require_once 'aws_signed_request.php';

class AmazonProductAPI
{
/**
 * Your Amazon Access Key Id
 * @access private
 * @var string
 */
private $public_key     = "";

/**
 * Your Amazon Secret Access Key
 * @access private
 * @var string
 */
private $private_key    = "";

private $media_type     = "";

private $region         = "";

private $out_file_fp    = "";


public function __construct($public, $private, $region) {
    $this->public_key   = $public;
    $this->private_key  = $private;
    $this->region       = $region;
}        

public function getNode($node)
{
    $parameters = array("Operation"  => "BrowseNodeLookup",
                                        "BrowseNodeId"   => $node,
                                        "ResponseGroup" => "BrowseNodeInfo");

    $xml_response = aws_signed_request($parameters,
                                       $this->public_key,
                                       $this->private_key,
                                       $this->region);

    return ($xml_response);
}


public function setMedia($media, $file = "") {
    $media_type = array("display", "csv");

    if(!in_array($media,$media_type)) {
        throw new Exception("Invalid Media Type");
        exit();
    }

    $this->media_type = $media;

    if($media == "csv") {
        $this->out_file_fp = fopen($file,'a+');
    }
}


private function writeOut($level, $name, $id, $parent) {
    if($this->media_type == "display") {
        $spaces = str_repeat( ' ', ( $level * 6 ) );
        echo $spaces . $parent . ' : ' . $name . ' : ' . $id . "\n";   
    } elseif ($this->media_type == "csv") {
        $csv_line = '"' . $parent . '","' . $name . '","' . $id . '"' . "\n";
        fputs($this->out_file_fp, $csv_line);
    } else {
        throw new Exception("Invalid Media Type");
        exit();
    }
}


public function getBrowseNodes($nodeValue, $level = 0)
{
    try {
        $result = $this->getNode($nodeValue);
    }
    catch(Exception $e) {
        echo $e->getMessage();
    }

    if(!isset($result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Children->BrowseNode)) return;

    if(count($result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Children->BrowseNode) > 0) {
        foreach($result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Children->BrowseNode as $node) {
            $this->writeOut($level, $node->Name,
                            $node->BrowseNodeId,
                            $result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Name);

            $this->getBrowseNodes($node->BrowseNodeId, $level+1);
        }
    } else {
        return;        
    }
}


public function getNodeName($nodeValue)
{
    try {
        $result = $this->getNode($nodeValue);
    }
    catch(Exception $e) {
        echo $e->getMessage();
    }

    if(!isset($result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Name)) return;

    return (string)$result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Name;
}


public function getParentNode($nodeValue)
{
    try {
        $result = $this->getNode($nodeValue);
    }
    catch(Exception $e) {
        echo $e->getMessage();
    }

    if(!isset($result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Ancestors->BrowseNode->BrowseNodeId)) return;

    $parent_node = array("id" => (string)$result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Ancestors->BrowseNode->BrowseNodeId,
                         "name" => (string)$result->BrowseNodes->BrowseNode->Ancestors->BrowseNode->Name);
    return $parent_node;
}}?>

Create file named as aws_signed_request.php

<?php


function  aws_signed_request($params,$public_key,$private_key,$region)   
{

$method = "GET";
$host = "ecs.amazonaws.".$region; // must be in small case
$uri = "/onca/xml";


$params["Service"]          = "AWSECommerceService";
$params["AWSAccessKeyId"]   = $public_key;
$params["AssociateTag"]     = 'YOUR-ASSOCIATES-ID-HERE';
$params["Timestamp"]        = gmdate("Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z");
$params["Version"]          = "2009-03-31";

/* The params need to be sorted by the key, as Amazon does this at
  their end and then generates the hash of the same. If the params
  are not in order then the generated hash will be different thus
  failing the authetication process.
*/
ksort($params);

$canonicalized_query = array();

foreach ($params as $param=>$value)
{
    $param = str_replace("%7E", "~", rawurlencode($param));
    $value = str_replace("%7E", "~", rawurlencode($value));
    $canonicalized_query[] = $param."=".$value;
}

$canonicalized_query = implode("&", $canonicalized_query);

$string_to_sign = $method."\n".$host."\n".$uri."\n".$canonicalized_query;

/* calculate the signature using HMAC with SHA256 and base64-encoding.
   The 'hash_hmac' function is only available from PHP 5 >= 5.1.2.
*/
$signature = base64_encode(hash_hmac("sha256", $string_to_sign, $private_key, True));

/* encode the signature for the request */
$signature = str_replace("%7E", "~", rawurlencode($signature));

/* create request */
$request = "http://".$host.$uri."?".$canonicalized_query."&Signature=".$signature;

/* I prefer using CURL */
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$request);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 15);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);

$xml_response = curl_exec($ch);

if ($xml_response === False)
{
    return False;
}
else
{
    /* parse XML */
    $parsed_xml = @simplexml_load_string($xml_response);
    return ($parsed_xml === False) ? False : $parsed_xml;
}
}
?>

Create file named as index.php

<?php

/* Example usage of the Amazon Product Advertising API */ 
include("amazon_api_class.php");

$public_key     = "YOUR-AMAZON-PUBLIC-KEY";
$private_key    = "YOUR-AMAZON-SECRET-KEY";
$region         = "com"; // or "CA" or "DE" etc.

$obj = new AmazonProductAPI($public_key, $private_key, $region); 
$obj->setMedia("display");
$obj->getBrowseNodes("1036592"); //Apparel US store

?>

Dont forget to update your public and private key in index.php