Hack 77 Embed Product Details into a Web Page with PHP
 
A simple way to display product data with
existing PHP functions.
One great aspect
of an open API is that
other developers have probably already put together some tools to
make your life easier. After all, why reinvent the wheel if someone
else has already created what you need? These helper scripts are
called wrappers because they wrap up some
frequently used code into a few functions that you can call from
another script. Daniel Filzhut, the author of the
amazon_functions PHP wrapper, asks that people
register if they earn quarterly associates fees greater than $50; but
otherwise, it's free to try out or use for commercial purposes.
77.1 What You Need
To get started with this hack, you'll need to download the code from
http://associatesshop.filzhut.de
(choose "download" from the left-hand menu).
Unzip the package and open
amazon_functions.php
in the functions directory. Change
the first line under Setup at the top of the file
to include your developer's token:
define ("DEVTOKEN", "insert developer token ");
77.2 The Code
The file with the helper functions is now ready to be included in any
PHP script. This script has several functions that handle requesting
information from Amazon and generating HTML based on the responses.
Pick your favorite ASIN [Hack #1] and create a file called detail.php
with the following code:
<?php
include('amazon_functions.php');
$Data=amazon_search_asin("0596004478","HEAVY");
$ProductInfoHTML=amazon_create_productinfo($Data);
echo $ProductInfoHTML;
php?>
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Be sure to save both amazon_functions.php and
detail.php to the same directory on your web
server. Also, if you have a directory specified as an
include_path in your php.ini
configuration file, you can save
amazon_functions.php there and it'll be
available to all of your PHP scripts.
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77.3 Running the Hack
Just browse to this file on your server to see it in action. The HTML
written by this script includes an image of the product, a "buy from
Amazon.com" button, the price, publisher, release date, and customer
reviews. Not too shabby for just four lines of code! This code could
be dropped into any PHP page so that the product details blend in
with your site's design.
You'll find more than just the ASIN search method in the
amazon_functions.php file. This file also has a
simplified PHP interface to all of the AWS methods. Though you don't
have complete control over the way product details are formatted,
it's a great place to start if you'd like to integrate product data
into an existing PHP-powered site.
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