I'm on a project to build a database of approximately 1,200 books from
a friends library (30 years worth) in Excel. I recently learned about
Amazon's ECS web services where you can search and retrieve
information on books (and other products) by IBSN. My friend will key
in the IBSN in column A of the spreadsheet and what I need to do is
for every IBSN search Amazon's database and retrieve title, authors,
date published, etc. and place in adjoining columns.

I thought I'd ask here if there are any examples of VBA code to access
and retrieve data from Amazon (directly into the spreadsheet, rather
than using intermediate files).

Any other quick ways to accomplish the task?

I'd like to get a jump on this task.

Thanks,

Carl

I would start by looking at the XMLHTTP object - this makes it very
simple to send a request and get back information.
Then check out MSXML for parsing the returned request.

Probably a lot of code samples out there already - seems to be a
favourite subject on the ASP sites so might start there.

Tim


"Carl" wrote in message
...
I'm on a project to build a database of approximately 1,200 books
from
a friends library (30 years worth) in Excel. I recently learned
about
Amazon's ECS web services where you can search and retrieve
information on books (and other products) by IBSN. My friend will
key
in the IBSN in column A of the spreadsheet and what I need to do is
for every IBSN search Amazon's database and retrieve title, authors,
date published, etc. and place in adjoining columns.

I thought I'd ask here if there are any examples of VBA code to
access
and retrieve data from Amazon (directly into the spreadsheet, rather
than using intermediate files).

Any other quick ways to accomplish the task?

I'd like to get a jump on this task.

Thanks,

Carl

Thanks for your reply. I was just looking for something specifically
using VBA in Excel to *directly* place the returned information into
the proper columns. I'm not understanding the interface and I will
check out your recommendation to look at the object and parsing and
learn more.

Thank you,

Carl

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 16:53:55 -0800, "Tim Williams"
<saxifrax@pacbell*dot*net wrote:

I would start by looking at the XMLHTTP object - this makes it very
simple to send a request and get back information.
Then check out MSXML for parsing the returned request.

Probably a lot of code samples out there already - seems to be a
favourite subject on the ASP sites so might start there.

Tim


"Carl" wrote in message
.. .
I'm on a project to build a database of approximately 1,200 books
from
a friends library (30 years worth) in Excel. I recently learned
about
Amazon's ECS web services where you can search and retrieve
information on books (and other products) by IBSN. My friend will
key
in the IBSN in column A of the spreadsheet and what I need to do is
for every IBSN search Amazon's database and retrieve title, authors,
date published, etc. and place in adjoining columns.

I thought I'd ask here if there are any examples of VBA code to
access
and retrieve data from Amazon (directly into the spreadsheet, rather
than using intermediate files).

Any other quick ways to accomplish the task?

I'd like to get a jump on this task.

Thanks,

Carl