question

Hi,

 

Please refer to

,

 

The eBay API

Here at X.com, the focus has generally been around PayPal and their payment platforms. From the look of things, that is about to change; but unless you're already familiar with the eBay Developer Program you may not know that they have a vast array of API methods you can utilize within your applications, and they work in essentially the same way that PayPal's APIs do.

You can find all the information necessary to get up and running with eBay APIs in their Developer Center. Much like PayPal, you'll need to create an eBay developer account as well as sandbox accounts for testing purposes. You can then use the eBay sandbox to post items and remove them (and anything else eBay would allow you to do, of course) while building your solution.

With all of that out of the way, let's focus on the GetItem and EndItem API calls. If we study the API reference provided by eBay, we find that the GetItem and EndItem calls are very simple and that they only require the standard credentials for an API call with eBay and a couple of additional basic parameters. (Note that if you click on any of the XML elements in the API documentation it will provide more details on that element, the type of data you can send with it, and any particular values that can be included.)

This PHP sample would first use the GetItem API to retrieve some info about the current item and then either display a warning message or go ahead and remove item number 123456789 from eBay because it was already sold elsewhere. Generally speaking, you'll probably be using some sort of class library to handle much of the code involved in that sample; however, this provides a good overview of exactly what is happening and how it would be put together.

 

and let us know if you have additional questions.

 

Thanks

Rajesh