How to iterate through browsenodes returned via amazon-ecs gem item lookup call?

Question

I am writing an internal application to monitor our Amazon listed products and am stuck with the Amazon Product Advertising API (amazon-ecs) Ruby gem. I would like to display on the screen the browse nodes similar to this:

"root category" -> all sub categories -> final category (the actual category the item is in)

    <BrowseNode>
<BrowseNodeId>770071031</BrowseNodeId>
<Name>Robotic Vacuums</Name>
<Ancestors>
  <BrowseNode>
  <BrowseNodeId>125698031</BrowseNodeId>
  <Name>Vacuums</Name>
    <Ancestors>
    <BrowseNode>
    <BrowseNodeId>3147711</BrowseNodeId>
    <Name>Vacuums &amp; Floor Care</Name>
      <Ancestors>
        <BrowseNode>
        <BrowseNodeId>3576359031</BrowseNodeId>
        <Name>Vacuuming, Cleaning &amp; Ironing</Name>
          <Ancestors>
            <BrowseNode>
            <BrowseNodeId>391784011</BrowseNodeId>
            <Name>Kitchen &amp; Home Appliances</Name>
              <Ancestors>
              <BrowseNode>
              <BrowseNodeId>3147411</BrowseNodeId>
              <Name>Categories</Name>
              <IsCategoryRoot>1</IsCategoryRoot>
                <Ancestors>
                <BrowseNode>
                <BrowseNodeId>11052681</BrowseNodeId>
                <Name>Kitchen &amp; Home</Name>
                  <Ancestors>
                  <BrowseNode>
                  <BrowseNodeId>11052591</BrowseNodeId>
                  <Name>Home &amp; Garden</Name>
                  <Ancestors>
                    <BrowseNode>
                    <BrowseNodeId>3146281</BrowseNodeId>
                    <Name>Home &amp; Garden</Name>
                    </BrowseNode>
                  </Ancestors>
                </BrowseNode>
                </Ancestors>
                </BrowseNode>
              </Ancestors>
            </BrowseNode>
            </Ancestors>
          </BrowseNode>
          </Ancestors>
        </BrowseNode>
      </Ancestors>
    </BrowseNode>
  </Ancestors>
  </BrowseNode>
</Ancestors>
</BrowseNode>

So the above should be displayed as:

Home & Garden -> Kitchen & Home -> Kitchen & Home Appliances -> Vacuuming, Cleaning & Ironing -> Vacuums & Floor Care -> Vacuums

I have tried get_array, and get_hash but these all return a value of just one long string.

Is there a way to easily do what i want to do using the amazon-ecs gem or should I process the string as XML and try to loop though this accordingly?

Show us what you've tried so we don't waste our time reinventing your wheel. — the Tin Man, Mar 18 '14 at 19:01
Why isn't `Categories` significant? How would you decide not to include it? — the Tin Man, Mar 18 '14 at 19:04

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

This is a simple way to get there. Without any criteria showing how you determine what <Name> nodes are acceptable this returns them all:

require 'nokogiri'

xml = <<EOT
<BrowseNode>
<BrowseNodeId>770071031</BrowseNodeId>
<Name>Robotic Vacuums</Name>
<Ancestors>
  <BrowseNode>
  <BrowseNodeId>125698031</BrowseNodeId>
  <Name>Vacuums</Name>
    <Ancestors>
    <BrowseNode>
    <BrowseNodeId>3147711</BrowseNodeId>
    <Name>Vacuums &amp; Floor Care</Name>
      <Ancestors>
        <BrowseNode>
        <BrowseNodeId>3576359031</BrowseNodeId>
        <Name>Vacuuming, Cleaning &amp; Ironing</Name>
          <Ancestors>
            <BrowseNode>
            <BrowseNodeId>391784011</BrowseNodeId>
            <Name>Kitchen &amp; Home Appliances</Name>
              <Ancestors>
              <BrowseNode>
              <BrowseNodeId>3147411</BrowseNodeId>
              <Name>Categories</Name>
              <IsCategoryRoot>1</IsCategoryRoot>
                <Ancestors>
                <BrowseNode>
                <BrowseNodeId>11052681</BrowseNodeId>
                <Name>Kitchen &amp; Home</Name>
                  <Ancestors>
                  <BrowseNode>
                  <BrowseNodeId>11052591</BrowseNodeId>
                  <Name>Home &amp; Garden</Name>
                  <Ancestors>
                    <BrowseNode>
                    <BrowseNodeId>3146281</BrowseNodeId>
                    <Name>Home &amp; Garden</Name>
                    </BrowseNode>
                  </Ancestors>
                </BrowseNode>
                </Ancestors>
                </BrowseNode>
              </Ancestors>
            </BrowseNode>
            </Ancestors>
          </BrowseNode>
          </Ancestors>
        </BrowseNode>
      </Ancestors>
    </BrowseNode>
  </Ancestors>
  </BrowseNode>
</Ancestors>
</BrowseNode>
EOT
doc = Nokogiri::XML(xml)

Here's the code to find the nodes:

doc.search('Name').map(&:text).reverse.uniq.join(' -> ')
# => "Home & Garden -> Kitchen & Home -> Categories -> Kitchen & Home Appliances -> Vacuuming, Cleaning & Ironing -> Vacuums & Floor Care -> Vacuums -> Robotic Vacuums"

Some entries are duplicated, so uniq will clean them out.

See "How to avoid joining all text from Nodes when scraping" also.

How to iterate through browsenodes returned via amazon-ecs gem item lookup call?

1 Answers1