Accuracy with Amazon Product API and multiple potential categories

Question

i'm using codeigniter alongside this Amazon ECS class — https://github.com/Exeu/Amazon-ECS-PHP-Library

the problem i'm running into is that people could put any number of things in to our app that i'd like amazon to be trolled to match. it could be a quote from a book, a lyric from a song, a soliloquy from a TV series, etc.

yet there is no way of knowing which one of these various categories to shoot off to with the class. from what i can tell from googling and trial/error'ing you can only choose one category . i'm doing it like so:

$amzn = $this->ecs->category('Books')->responseGroup('Small,Images')->optionalParameters(array('author'=>$chunk['author']))->search($chunk['source']);

the further issue is that the data i have—author and source—could be an actual author, a character from a movie, a musician/band, a book, a tv series, an album or song, etc.

so my question: is there a way to just dump a group of variables within a context (but larger than singular, ie 'Books')? if i could drop the author and the source in I think my chances of finding the most accurate result would be better off.

if not, then what's the best alternative? just run the query on all three categories and then compare the results?

halp! thanks!

Answer 1

This should help:

http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/USSearchIndexParamForItemsearch.html#USSearchIndexParamForItemsearch_All

Just use the category "All" and you should be able to just send the "keywords".

Hope that helps!