eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition

Create Custom-Formatted eBay Search Results with the REST API

Save your favorite searches in your web browser as bookmarks.

As with “Create a Split-Pane Search Tool” [Hack #105] and “Receive Search Results via RSS” [Hack #106] , this hack retrieves eBay search results in a way that can be customized for a very specific application.

Instead of using eBay’s XML or SOAP APIs, this script uses eBay’s little-known REST API. The REST API is simpler to use, but currently only supports a single function: GetSearchResults. Fortunately, this is exactly the one call you need.

The first step is to retrieve a special REST Auth & Auth token [Hack #103] . The only thing different you’ll have to do for this hack is to click the “Include the REST token” checkbox.

Now you’re ready to make an eBay REST request. REST requests are simple because they’re just HTTP URLs, so you can test them out in your web browser. Here’s the format:

    http://rest.api.ebay.com/restapi?Query=<Insert Your Query> 
    &RequestToken=<Insert your REST Token>&RequestUserId<Insert Your eBay User 
    Id>&CallName=GetSearchResults.

Replace the placeholders with appropriate values: the Query (what you want to search for), the RequestToken (the value you just generated), and the RequestUserId (your eBay member ID). Make sure to replace any spaces in your query with plus signs.

Here’s an example that searches for “eBay Hacks”:

http://rest.api.ebay.com/restapi?Query=eBay+Hacks&RequestToken=hkK1wDpFw…

When you enter this into your browser’s address ...