SoFunction
Updated on 2025-03-03

Example of php searching book information on Amazon website based on isbn book number


$isbn   = '007149216X';
$result = PIPHP_GetBookFromISBN($isbn);
if (!$result) echo "Could not find title for ISBN '$isbn'.";
else echo "<img src='$result[1]' align='left'><b>$result[0]";

function PIPHP_GetBookFromISBN($isbn)
{
   // Plug-in 93: Get Book From ISBN
   //
   // This plug-in looks up an ISBN-10 at and then
   // returns the matching book title and a thumbnail image
   // of the front cover. It requires this argument:
   //
   //    $isbn: The ISBN to look up
   //
   // Updated from the function in the book to take into
   // account changes to the Amazon HTML.

   $find = '<meta name="description" content="Amazon:';
   $url  = "/gp/aw/?a=$isbn";
   $img  = '/images/I';

   $page = @file_get_contents($url);
   if (!strlen($page)) return array(FALSE);

   $ptr1 = strpos($page, $find) + strlen($find);
   if (!$ptr1) return array(FALSE);

   $ptr2  = strpos($page, '" />', $ptr1);
   $title = substr($page, $ptr1, $ptr2 - $ptr1);

   $find = $img;
   $ptr1  = strpos($page, $find) + strlen($find);
   $ptr2  = strpos($page, '"', $ptr1);
   $image = substr($page, $ptr1, $ptr2 - $ptr1);

   return array($title, $img . $image);
}