NAME

DBD::Amazon- DBI driver abstraction for the Amazon E-Commerce Services API

SYNOPSIS

        $dbh = DBI->connect('dbi:Amazon:', $amznid, undef,
                { amzn_mode => 'books', 
                        amzn_locale => 'us',
                        amzn_max_pages => 3
                })
            or die "Cannot connect: " . $DBI::errstr;
        #
        #       search for some Perl DBI books
        #
        $sth = $dbh->prepare("
                SELECT ASIN, 
                        Title, 
                        Publisher, 
                        PublicationDate, 
                        Author, 
                        SmallImageURL, 
                        URL, 
                        SalesRank, 
                        ListPriceAmt, 
                        AverageRating
                FROM Books
                WHERE MATCHES ALL('Perl', 'DBI') AND 
                        PublicationDate >= '2000-01-01'
                ORDER BY SalesRank DESC,
                        ListPriceAmt ASC, 
                        AverageRating DESC");

        $sth->execute or die 'Cannot execute: ' . $sth->errstr;

        print join(', ', @$row), "\n"
                while $row = $sth->fetchrow_arrayref;

        $dbh->disconnect;

DESCRIPTION

DBD::Amazon provides a DBI and SQL syntax abstraction for the Amazon(R) E-Commerce Services 4.0 API aka ECS. http://www.amazon.com/gp/. Using the REST interface, and a limited SQL dialect, it provides a DBI-friendly interface to ECS.

Be advised that this is ALPHA release software and subject to change at the whim of the author(s).

Download

DBD-Amazon-0.10.tar.gz

Prerequisites

Perl 5.8.0

DBI 1.42 minimum

SQL::Statement 1.14

SQL::Amazon 0.10 (included in this bundle)

Clone 0.15

Testing Considerations

To run the test package, you'll need

An Amazon ECS User ID

An environment variable DBD_AMZN_USER must be set to an Amazon ECS user ID in order to connect and execute ECS requests. Registration at the Amazon Web Services site is required to acquire a user ID.

An Internet Connection

Obviously.

Patience

Some of these tests download large amounts of Amazon catalog data, which can take some time (esp. since a minimum 1 second delay between requests is required).

Also, be prepared for possible intermittent 'Internal Error' reports; these are problems within the Amazon ECS system, not failures in DBD::Amazon itself.

Installation

For Unix:

gunzip/untar as usual, then

    cd DBD-Amazon-0.10
    perl Makefile.PL
    make
        make test
    make install

Note that you probably need root or administrator permissions to install. Refer to ExtUtils::MakeMaker for details on installing in your own local directories.

For Windows:

Unzip with your favorite utility, e.g., WinZIP, then

    cd DBD-Amazon-0.10
    perl Makefile.PL
    nmake
        nmake test
    nmake install

SQL Dialect

DBD::Amazon supports a subset of standard SQL, and additional predicate functions for keyword searches. Review SQL::Amazon::Parser and SQL::Statement for syntax details.

Use table_info() to retrieve the metadata for any of the defined tables/views.

Currently, only the following tables are defined:

Books
Offers
CustomerReviews
EditorialReviews
BrowseNodes
ListManiaLists
Merchants
SimilarProducts
SysSchema

Driver-specific Attributes

amzn_locale (Connection attribute)

Sets the Amazon locale to use (i.e., the root ECS request URL). Valid values are 'us', 'uk', 'de', 'fr', 'jp', 'ca' (Currently, only us is supported). Default is 'us'.

amzn_affiliate_id (Connection attribute)

An Amazon affiliate ID. Default none.

amzn_strict (Connection attribute)
amzn_rate_limit (Connection attribute)

Minimum number of seconds allowed between requests. Default 1. May be fractional.

amzn_max_pages (Connection and statement attribute)

Maximum number of pages to return for each request. Default 20.

amzn_resp_group (Connection and statement attribute)

ECS Response Group to use; can be any of 'Small', 'Medium', or 'Large'; default is 'Large'.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to Jeff Zucker for his guidance/patience, and adding some nice new features to SQL::Statement to help make DBD::Amazon a reality.

FOR MORE INFO

http://www.presicient.com/dbdamzn

AUTHOR AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2005 by Presicient Corporation, USA

darnold@presicient.com

http://www.presicient.com

Permission is granted to use this software according to the terms of the Artistic License, as specified in the Perl README file, with the exception that commercial redistribution, either electronic or via physical media, as either a standalone package, or incorporated into a third party product, requires prior written approval of the author.

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Presicient Corp. reserves the right to provide support for this software to individual sites under a separate (possibly fee-based) agreement.

SEE ALSO

For help on the use of DBI, see the DBI users mailing list:

dbi-users-subscribe@perl.org

For general information on DBI see

http://dbi.perl.org

For information about the Amazon API, see

http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html/102-3140335-1462533?%5Fencoding=UTF8&node=3435361