topic Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au? in Selling

All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

heydasato_0 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 09:58:32 GMT

TWIMC,

Can I develop a computer program using a couple of APIs that ebay.com (US) has provided?

I would like to implement a synchronization system between ebay.com.au and other third party marketplaces for quantity of inventry. It means it is necessary for me to modeify data through APIs. However, I am also worried if any APIs are not available for ebay.com.au.

Is there anyone did develop a smilar system?

TIA.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 11:03:24 GMT

You can certainly do that and if you have success you can even sell your software to others once approved.

You'll need to sign up to the eBay developer program here:

https://go.developer.ebay.com/

Lots of Api's available as examples, access to sandbox, documentation, forums, in fact everything you'll need.

Good luck.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

clarry100 — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 02:09:02 GMT

I've never understood this ebay API development environment and what (if anything) I would be able to do with it.

Is there some reading material or even a Youtube video that can explain what its all about at a top level.

e.g. could i develop a small applet to interface my Excel accounting spreadsheet with my ebay account, so it can extract relevant accounting ifoormation directly into my spreadsheet?

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 09:30:36 GMT

Hi Clarry,

As far as I know there are no video guides but you may find something on YouTube.

There are several downloadable SDK's available which should provide you with basic solutions off the shelf:

SDK's

You'll find 3 SDK's described for Java, .Net and Python with examples.

The documentation is very complete - you'll just have to write a frontend and tweak as needed in the sandbox environment.

It costs nothing to sign up and you can play for free so why not?

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

clarry100 — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 09:46:12 GMT

Appreciate the info.

I was reading about the Python environment today.

So will look into that and see what I can learn. I'm keen to give it a go and see if I can make something of it.

More for self education and keeping the old grey matter active than anything else.

Like setting myself challenges especially when it comes to coding, quite enjoy it really. Probably the old nerd in me coming out I guess. LOL

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 20:00:53 GMT

I get a bit of a kick out of it too Clarry.

As you say, keeps the grey stuff up to date and functional.

Actually, when you have a look around, you'll find it's one of the more helpful and understandable areas of eBay.

At least the documentation is up to date and specific.

Let's know how you get on.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

clarry100 — Wed, 05 Apr 2017 21:25:30 GMT

Thanks again.

I'm up with the crows and do my best thinking then...

So early this morning I found a good video on installing Java JDK, Python, Neon etc and getting all that set up.

That part is all ready now and seems to be working, so onwards from here to see what trouble I can get into.

I might have questions as I go forward.

Is it OK to PM you from time to time if I need to?

If you have any helpful hints please feel free to PM me too.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

heydasato_0 — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 09:11:42 GMT

Hi dazzledayz,

Thanks a lot! I will try it.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 11:16:24 GMT

Whatever you decide to do with your API it will need to be deployed.

If you have a webserver already it should be fine but if you don't, you may want to have a look at this new(ish) development from MIT:

Server-Less

It's a very interesting concept that runs API instances as modules in a massively scalable environment via AWS Lambda.

It looks ideal for ebay API calls where you'll be doing some very intense stuff then nothing for long periods.

The charges are per call and quite minimal @ something like 0.00002 cents per call.

Crazy Lister are using this to insert their new non-active scrolling galleries and report a proposed $3000 server cost was reduced to $13.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

clarry100 — Sat, 08 Apr 2017 20:58:01 GMT

I've had a look a the Server-Less link you provided. Thanks for that.

But that stuff stuff is so far beyond me it's scary.

If I need to understand this kinda stuff to make these APIs work then I'm thinking its beyond me.

I haven't yet figured out how to make the sample application work that comes with the quick start developers page.

I have registered as a developer and have gotten the keys etc.

But when I execute the sample code I get back a blank page.

When I look at the "raw" page I see what looks like HTML code that appears to show error codes.

Something like Authentication failed: Invalid application.

So don't know where to go from here to play around in the sand box.

Any help appreciated.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 05:14:19 GMT

@clarry100 wrote:
I've had a look a the Server-Less link you provided. Thanks for that.

But that stuff stuff is so far beyond me it's scary.
If I need to understand this kinda stuff to make these APIs work then I'm thinking its beyond me.

I haven't yet figured out how to make the sample application work that comes with the quick start developers page.
I have registered as a developer and have gotten the keys etc.
But when I execute the sample code I get back a blank page.
When I look at the "raw" page I see what looks like HTML code that appears to show error codes.
Something like Authentication failed: Invalid application.

So don't know where to go from here to play around in the sand box.
Any help appreciated.

Hi Clarry,

It's early days for me too but I should ask - what server setup are you using and are your ports opened correctly?

If you set up a static html page at your ip addy you can ping it in your browser to check using traceroute or similar.

There's a page here you may find useful from Stack Overflow:

Calling a Restful API with Python

You'll need to parse any replies and the page above has some info on that.

You may also want to investigate CouchDB or PouchDB (Apache NoSQL databases); although they're java ithey're built specifically to work with Restful Api's

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

clarry100 — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 08:48:07 GMT

Haha. That just shows where I'm at.
I had no idea you needed to have a server set up. I had envisaged this to be something like coding in VBA. Which I can do.
I have no clue about server setups, but my son might.
Is there some settings specific to eBay APIs?
I'm thinking I must be a whole world behind where you are at with this. And seems a whole lot more to learn than I set out thinking.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 23:32:02 GMT

Hi Clarry,

You'll need to have a web service stack installed to be able to handle http requests; either a WAMP stack for windows or a LAMP stack for linux (( read Windows or Linux), Apache, Mysql, PHP ).

LAMP Stack

Stack Overflow is a very useful site for info but there are plenty of stacks out there and they are easilly installed.

The MySQL part is optional but you will need a DB you can work with and MySQL is pretty common for most applications.

(I did mention CouchDB and PouchDB earlier as one possible option)

In reality though, if you don't want to be fussing about heaps, you should be working in the Linux environment (windows is a very complicated beast when it comes to setting up connections).

Security is an issue too as you will be opening your network up to the big bad world so a web server should normally be the network server and very well firewalled (as should each machine on the network).

Another reason to install Linux is that the component installs will not (usually) create any system conflicts.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

gec2002 — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 00:18:00 GMT

If your doing your own site its well worthwhile having a bit of an idea of WAMP or LAMP. You can download WampServer from SourceForge and set it up on your own PC and just use localhost, that way you can learn about Apache, PHP and MySQL without worrying too much about the security issue. You can build a site locally, tweek it and then move it to a server if you want.

Before getting into eBay APIs you should have some knowledge of SOAP and XML

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 06:32:12 GMT

@gec2002 wrote:
If your doing your own site its well worthwhile having a bit of an idea of WAMP or LAMP. You can download WampServer from SourceForge and set it up on your own PC and just use localhost, that way you can learn about Apache, PHP and MySQL without worrying too much about the security issue. You can build a site locally, tweek it and then move it to a server if you want.

Before getting into eBay APIs you should have some knowledge of SOAP and XML

I agree with everything said above and it's very true that working with localhost is the only way to get your toes wet.

Having said that though, if and when you decide to move a site to a hosting provider it will usually be in the 64 bit Linux world.

I'm using CentOS which is a branch of Red Hat and used by a good many hosting companies.

The closer your dev environment is to your production environment, the more trouble free your transition should be.

Some research on PHP versions would not go astray as they are up to Ver 7 but not everyone supports it yet.

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

gec2002 — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 07:42:01 GMT

I suggested WAMP as Clarry and others reading this are most likely familiar with / using Windows, so can get started straight using using their PC. With Linux they will probably also need to learn a new operating system and either set up a separate computer or Virtual one, withWAMP they can pretty much dive in straight away, and still get some experience with Apache, MySQL and PHP.

Don't get me wrong, anyboby really getting into development should learn Linux, just sometimes trying to learn too many things at once can get overwhelming. So just to completely overwhelm you, if going with Linux for scripting you will need some PHP, PERL and Python (The Ps in LAMP).

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

clarry100 — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 10:05:50 GMT

I already have XAMP installed and running in LocalHost mode on my Windows 10 PC.

I have been tinkering with learning to develop my own eCommerce website using WordPress and WooCommerce which I also have installed and running. I'm unsure if this is any different to, or some kind of extension to, WAMP you are talking of.

Can XAMP be setup to perform the functionality I would need to tinker with ebay APIs?

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

dazzledayz — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 03:21:10 GMT

@clarry100 wrote:
I already have XAMP installed and running in LocalHost mode on my Windows 10 PC.

I have been tinkering with learning to develop my own eCommerce website using WordPress and WooCommerce which I also have installed and running. I'm unsure if this is any different to, or some kind of extension to, WAMP you are talking of.

Can XAMP be setup to perform the functionality I would need to tinker with ebay APIs?

Hi Clarry:

Short answer? Yes you can but (and isn't there always):

Quote from xampp home page:

"The default configuration is not good from a securtiy point of view and it's not secure enough for a production environment - please don't use XAMPP in such environment".

This doesn't mean you can't do it but you'll need to be opening and closing your external port before and after executing requests (and there is still no guarantee you won't be "sniffed" during the brief periods you are exposed).

Website security is a whole different and lengthy discussion which we won't be able to cover here.

There are quite a few tutorials available about how to take Xampp "live" and it will depend on your modem as to how you do it but you should look up "port forwarding" on your particular hardware make/model.

Essentially, you want to provide an open port (usually port 80) which is linked to your Xampp computer's internal network ip addy so calls to your web IP will be directed to your server.

If you are running dynamic name server in your router's network config you should at least change the Xampp device to static as you will be putting an IP addy into PHP and Apache hosts files etc.

Here's a link on the topic that also contains a link to Apache setup parameters:

SitePoint discussion

In essence; your speed will be very slow and your security will be highly suspect.

You'd probably do well to just get an initial elCheapo hosting account to test calls as all the security will be handled at the ISP's end and you will have sufficient bandwidth to play with your API calls.

I think there are even a few around that offer free wordpress blogging accounts that should work.

You might want to have a look at this guy in Adelaide:

Profound Hosting

He's on a christian mission with a smallish free plan available that looks good on spec and may suit (Wordpress is OK).
He'll only report you to the AFP if you're naughty lol.
As you'll see, he uses CentOS as do most hosts.
I strongly suggest you look at setting up a linux dev environment on your computer which you could make dual boot using Grub Loader.

This is a good topic you've started and I'm learning a few new things myself

Re: All APIs Available for ebay.com.au?

gec2002 — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 03:33:44 GMT

6 of one and half a dozen of the other. XAMP tends to be bloatware,has an email server, FTP server, SSL support and others which if you need them is great otherwise just bloat.

For the APIs I think you would need Apache Ant installed and the appropriate ebay SDK. eg eBay Java SDK