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BrowseNodeInfo Response Group

For a given browse node ID, the BrowseNodeInfo response group returns the browse node name and ID of the child and parent browse nodes.

One application of this information is to use the child and parent browse nodes to traverse the browse node hierarchy to either refine a search (child nodes) or to generalize a search (parent nodes). You do that using BrowseNodeLookup one or more times. Refining a search enables you to return more highly targeted results. Generalizing a response enables you to find what product category a browse node belongs to.

This response group is similar to the BrowseNodes response group. The difference is that the BrowseNodes response group is used with operations, including ItemSearch, ItemLookup, ListLookup, and SimilarityLookup, that are based on item attributes, search indices, and lists, and potentially return multiple items. BrowseNodeInfo can only be used with BrowseNodeLookup and the search is always keyed on a browse node ID.

Relevant Operations

Operations that can use this response group include:

BrowseNodeLookup

Response Elements

The following table describes the elements returned by BrowseNodeInfo. The elements on the left side of a slash mark are the parents of the elements on the right side of the slash mark.

Response Element	Ancestry	Definition
`BrowseNodeId`	BrowseNode/BrowseNodeId	A positive integer that uniquely identifies a product category.
`BrowseNodeId`	BrowseNode/Children/BrowseNode/BrowseNodeId	Browsenode ID of children browsenodes. A browsenode ID is a positive integer that uniquely identifies a product category. A child browsenode is related to its parent, for example, Harry Potter Books would be a child of Books.
`Name`	BrowseNode/Children/BrowseNode/Name	The name of the child browsenode.
`Name`	BrowseNode/Name	The name of the browsenode.

As you can see from this table, BrowseNodeInfo returns the identity of child and parent browse nodes. That information is typically used with BrowseNodeLookup to traverse the browse node hierarchy.

Parent Response Group

The following response groups are parent response groups of BrowseNodeInfo.

None

Child Response Group

The following response groups are child response groups of BrowseNodeInfo.

None

Sample REST Use Case

All locales.

http://ecs.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?
Service=AWSECommerceService&
AWSAccessKeyId=[Access Key ID]&
Operation=BrowseNodeLookup&
BrowseNodeId=11232&
ResponseGroup=BrowseNodeInfo

Sample Response Snippet

The following response snippet shows the elements returned by BrowseNodeInfo.

<Item>
<ASIN>0131856340</ASIN>
<BrowseNodes>
  <BrowseNode>
  <BrowseNodeId>11232</BrowseNodeId>
  <Name> Social Sciences</Name>
  <Ancestors>
    <BrowseNode>
      <BrowseNodeId>53</BrowseNodeId>
      <Name>Nonfiction</Name>
      <Ancestors>
        <BrowseNode>
          <BrowseNodeId>1000</BrowseNodeId>
          <Name>Subjects</Name>
          <Ancestors>
            <BrowseNode>
              <BrowseNodeId>283155</BrowseNodeId>
              <Name>Books</Name>
            </BrowseNode>
          </Ancestors>
        </BrowseNode>
      </Ancestors>
    </BrowseNode>
  </Ancestors>
  <Children>
    <BrowseNode>
      <BrowseNodeId>11233</BrowseNodeId> 
      <Name>Anthropology</Name> 
    </BrowseNode>
    <BrowseNode>
      <BrowseNodeId>11242</BrowseNodeId> 
      <Name>Archaeology</Name> 
    </BrowseNode>
    <BrowseNode>
      <BrowseNodeId>3048861</BrowseNodeId> 
      <Name>Children's Studies</Name> 
    </BrowseNode>
  </Children>
</BrowseNodes>

Notice in this response snippet that the child nodes are all at the same level in the hierarchical browse node tree, which is the level directly beneath the browse node in the request, 11232, Social Science. The parent nodes, however, show the entire lineage of browse nodes from Social Science all the way up the browse node tree to the root browse node, Books, 283155. Only one lineage, however, is returned. If a single node has multiple parents, only one of those parents is returned.