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The Help operation provides information about Amazon Associates Web Service 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.
The following table describes the request parameters for Help. Parameter names are case sensitive.
| Parameter | Definition | Req'd? |
|---|---|---|
About
| Specifies the operation or response group about which you want more information. All Amazon Associates Web Service operations, all Amazon Associates Web Service response groups | No |
HelpType
| Specifies whether the help topic is an operation or response group. Valid Values: Operation, ResponseGroup | No |
ResponseGroup
| Specifies the types of values to return. You can specify multiple response groups in one request by separating them with commas. Valid Values: No others | No |
Help also accepts the parameters that all operations can use. For more information, see, Common Request Parameters.
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 hierarchical 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 Amazon Associates Web Service 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.
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=[AWS Access Key ID]&
Operation=Help&
HelpType=Operation&
About=ItemLookupThe response to this request is shown in, Response to Sample Request.
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=[AWS Access Key ID]&
Operation=Help&
HelpType=ResponseGroup&
About=LargeThe following XML is a snippet of the full response to the first sample request.
<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 understanding the hierarchy of response elements.
