[erlang-questions] Amazon API -- Lookup by ISBN

[lloyd@REDACTED]

Thanks all.

Darach--- looks like the Library of Congress API fits the bill.

Garrett--- for sake of self-enlightenment I'll take a look at Python implementations. 

I can understand that Amazon needs to enforce security on their api, but one would think that the inventor of one-click ordering could come up with a simpler api request implementation. Maybe they're just trying to keep pesky users like me out of the goodies. Wizards only apply.

Best wishes,

Lloyd



-----Original Message-----
From: "Darach Ennis" <darach@REDACTED>
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2015 8:07pm
To: "Lloyd Prentice" <lloyd@REDACTED>
Cc: "Erlang Questions" <erlang-questions@REDACTED>
Subject: Re: [erlang-questions] Amazon API -- Lookup by ISBN

If you don't need the rank information you can get the metadata through
composing a URL
against the library of congress database:

http://lx2.loc.gov:210/lcdb?version=1.1&operation=searchRetrieve&query=bath.isbn=0448421658&maximumRecords=1&recordSchema=mods

This will deliver an XML document. You can get similar information from
Google's API:

http://www.google.com/books/feeds/volumes/?q=ISBN%3C0448421658%3E

Both are simple HTTP GET requests so unless you absolutely need data unique
to Amazon's DB perhaps that would suffice.

Cheers,

Darach.

On Wed, Apr 8, 2015 at 9:47 PM, <lloyd@REDACTED> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I'm striving to look up books in Amazon's db by ISBN. At first blush it
> looks easy enough:
>
>
> http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/EX_LookupbyISBN.html
>
> But the last item, Signature, baffles me. Procedure here:
>
>
> http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/rest-signature.html
>
> I'm fine with this until I hit step 4:
>
> -- Sort parameter/value pairs by byte value --- I can see how to do this
> manually, but don't know how put Erlang to the task
>
> And I'm really stumped when I hit step 8:
>
> -- Calculate an RFC 2104-compliant HMAC with the SHA256 hash algorithm
>
> Any help? Better yet, does anyone have actual code to make such requests
> they're willing to share?
>
> NOTE: Dave Thomas solved this problem way back in 2007. But looks like
> Amazon has changed their request format:
>
> http://pragdave.me/blog/2007/04/15/a-first-erlang-program/
>
> Many thanks,
>
> LRP
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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