Locale Considerations - Amazon Product Advertising API Developer's Manual

Product Advertising API Developer Guide
Handling Errors
Amazon also uses your Associate tag to monitor your use of Product Advertising API, which helps us
determine how to improve our web service.
Handling Errors
Make sure your application handles errors gracefully. One way to do that is to check the status of the
IsValid element. IsValid is returned with every request. If its value is "False," there will be an error
message with a description of why your request was not valid.
It's generally a good practice to log any unexpected error that is returned by Product Advertising API.
Errors are returned with an error code and message. The code is a descriptive string that identifies the
error. The error message is a more 'human friendly' message that can be displayed to your customers.
Your application should be able to handle expected error messages.
Your application, for example, should display error messages that are meaningful to the customer. For
example, when Product Advertising API responds with the error,
"AWS.ECommerceService.NoExactMatches," your application should display an explanation, such as,
"We did not find any matches for your request."
If your application exceeds the number of allowed requests submitted per second, Product Advertising
API returns a 503 error, which means that Product Advertising API is restricting the number of requests
it is processing from your application. The Product Advertising API Terms and Conditions outline the
number of allowed requests permitted per second.
Use Caches Carefully
Product Advertising API product data changes often. Prices can change hourly, Browsenode values
change without notice, and product availability is volatile. For these reasons, you should not cache product
data.
It is against the Product Advertising API Terms and Conditions to cache customer information derived
from Amazon.
You can enhance the performance of your application by caching identifiers, such as the CartId , HMAC ,
and PurchaseURL .
Use the Correct AWSAccessKeyId
To become a Product Advertising API developer, you must register with Amazon. Go to
http://aws.amazon.com and create a web service account. Your account contains an AWSAccessKeyId
and a SecretKey . Every Product Advertising API request you submit must include the AWSAccessKeyId .
Because your account is linked to your e-mail address, Amazon can contact you easily
Community Forums
Product Advertising API has an active and passionate developer community. It's a great place to get API
questions answered or share ideas with other developers. To join, go to
http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/forum.jspa?forumID=9

Locale Considerations

Topics
• Locales (p. 161)
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