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Help

The Help operation provides information about ECS operations and response groups. For operations, Help lists required and optional request parameters, as well as default and optional response groups the operation can use. For response groups, Help lists the operations that can use the response group as well as the response tags returned by the response group in the XML response.

The Help operation is not often used in customer applications. It can, however, be used to help the developer in the following ways:

Provide contextual help in an interactive development environment (IDE) for developers
Automate documentation creation as part of a developer’s toolkit.

Availability

All locales.

Request Parameters

The following table describes the request parameters for Help. Parameter names are case sensitive.

Parameter Definition Req'd? Valid Values

About Specifies the operation or response group about which you want more information. No All ECS operations, all ECS response groups

Parameter	Definition	Req'd?	Valid Values
`About`	Specifies the operation or response group about which you want more information.	No	All ECS operations, all ECS response groups
`HelpType`	Specifies whether the help topic is an operation or response group. `HelpType` and `About` values must both be operations or response groups, not a mixture of the two.	No	Operation ResponseGroup
`ResponseGroup`	Specifies the types of values to return. You can specify multiple response groups in one request by separating them with commas.	No	Request (Default) Help (Default)

HelpType

Specifies whether the help topic is an operation or response group. HelpType and About values must both be operations or response groups, not a mixture of the two.

Operation

ResponseGroup

ResponseGroup

Specifies the types of values to return. You can specify multiple response groups in one request by separating them with commas.

Request (Default)

Help (Default)

Help also accepts the parameters that all operations can use. For more information, see, Common Request Parameters.

Response Tags

The following table describes the default response tags included in Help responses.

Element Tag	Definition
`AvailableParameters`	Optional request parameters an operation can use. See `RequiredParameters`.
`AvailableResponseGroups`	Optional response groups an operation can use. See `DefaultResponseGroup`.
`DefaultResponseGroup`	Response groups an operation uses by default. See `.`
`Element`	Names of the elements used in the XML response. The elements are presented in an X-path, which reveals the hierarchicial structure of the XML elements as defined in the WSDL.
`Elements`	Container for one or more Element(s).
`Name`	Name of the operation in the `Help` request.
`Operation`	Name of ECS operation that can use the specified response group.
`OperationInformation`	Container for the entire response when the `HelpType` is operation. Child tags include Name, RequiredParameters, AvailableParameters, DefaultResponseGroups, and AvailableResponseGroups.
`RequiredParameters`	Request parameters that are required for an "operation."
`ValidOperations`	Container for one or more Operation(s). Specifies the operations that can use the specified response group.

For more information about the parent elements of these tags, see the appropriate response group in Response Groups.

Sample Requests

Use Help in the following ways:

The following request provides information about the operation, ItemLookup. In the request, HelpType must be set to “Operation” because the About value is an operation.
```
http://ecs.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?
Service=AWSECommerceService&
AWSAccessKeyId=[Access Key ID]&
Operation=Help&
HelpType=Operation&
About=ItemLookup
```
The response to this request is shown in, Response to Sample Request, below.
The following request provides information about the Large response group. In the request, HelpType must be set to “ResponseGroup” because the About value is a response group.
```
http://ecs.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?
Service=AWSECommerceService&
AWSAccessKeyId=[Access Key ID]&
Operation=Help&
HelpType=ResponseGroup&
About=Large
```

Response to Sample Request

The following XML is a snippet of the full response to the first sample request above.

<ResponseGroupInformation> 
<Name>Large</Name> 
  <CreationDate>2005-07-26</CreationDate> 
  <ValidOperations> 
  <Operation>ItemLookup</Operation> 
  <Operation>ItemSearch</Operation> 
  <Operation>ListLookup</Operation> 
  <Operation>SimilarityLookup</Operation> 
</ValidOperations>
<Elements> 
  <Element>Accessories/Accessory/ASIN</Element> 
  <Element>Accessories/Accessory/Title</Element> 
  <Element>Arguments/Argument/Name</Element> 
  <Element>Arguments/Argument/Value</Element> 
  <Element>BrowseNode/Ancestors/BrowseNode/BrowseNodeId</Element> 
  <Element>BrowseNode/Ancestors/BrowseNode/Name</Element> 
  <Element>BrowseNode/BrowseNodeId</Element> 
  <Element>BrowseNode/Children/BrowseNode/BrowseNodeId</Element> 
  <Element>BrowseNode/Children/BrowseNode/Name</Element> 
  <Element>BrowseNode/Name</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/AverageRating</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/ASIN</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/Content</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/CustomerId</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/Date</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/HelpfulVotes</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/Rating</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/Summary</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/Review/TotalVotes</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/TotalReviewPages</Element> 
  <Element>CustomerReviews/TotalReviews</Element> 
  <Element>EditorialReviews/EditorialReview/Content</Element> 
  <Element>EditorialReviews/EditorialReview/Source</Element> 
  <Element>Errors/Error/Code</Element> 
  <Element>Errors/Error/Message</Element>

Notice that Help displays the XML response elements in an X-path format. This presentation is helpful in umderstanding the hierarchy of response elements.

Related Operations

None