August 2003
Beginner
368 pages
9h 38m
English
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Tweaking Search URLs
Tap into eBay’s massive database right from your own address bar.
eBay is essentially a massive database. Every time you view an auction page, you’re just looking at a single database record. Every time you search, you’re performing a query. But even if you’re not familiar with DB lingo, you can play with eBay’s URLs to tweak what you see.
Auction Pages
Many pages on eBay use a standard CGI (Common Gateway Interface) format, which is nothing more than a program name followed by a command and one or more parameters:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3128013703
Here, cgi.ebay.com is the name of the server,
eBayISAPI.dll is the filename of the program,
ViewItem is the command to execute, and
item=3128013703 is a parameter. Any additional
parameters are separated by ampersands (&).
In this case, 3128013703 is the
auction number. Simply replace this with
another valid auction number, press Enter, and
you’ll see the corresponding auction page. This is
typically quicker and more convenient than using the Search page to
open an auction by its number.
Tip
Some sellers reference other auctions by simply including the auction number in their descriptions, usually because they don’t know how to make links (see [Hack #40]). To view the auction by its number, simply copy and paste the number into the URL, replacing the one that’s there.
Search Pages
A typical search page URL looks something like this:
http://search.ebay.com/ws/search/SaleSearch?satitle=avocado+green ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.