Looking for examples or help on integrating RETS into a php website

Question

I'm tasked with integrating RETS I to a php based website. I've heard that phrets is a good library to use. The site is on a shared hosting platform (godaddy). I thought I could build a page with some search fields and have it do a query and display the results on a second page? Other places I've read name it sound more like I will still need to run a local server that copies the data and stores it locally. Now I'm not sure what to do. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

First of all...get off your shared server and someplace where you can get root access. RETS requires access to port 6103 and a shared server is going to block access to it. Second, PHP is a perfectly good processing tool for RETS. VieleRETS is built in PHP and it's a great piece of software built by the center for realtor technology...the same people that created the RETS standard.

Answer 2

I looked at the product from RETS DEVELOPEMENT GROUP and I guarantee if you follow the guidelines outlined by the developer you will not understand RETS or IDX because the terminology being used on that site is just wrong on most levels. I'd stick with vieleRETS or another product.

Answer 3

RETS IQ using java is better way to Implement rather then PHRETS

Create Good Data feed Arch for RETS using RETS IQ java then Push that one in database better solution for you

Answer 4

Actually it will work using PHP on a shared server if:

• You have a host that allows access to port 6103. As other people have pointed out this is not the norm and definitely not with Godaddy, but there are a few out there.
• You are covering a market that is not huge.
• You optimize and optimize again your requests from the RETS server to only pull changes.

So if you have a limited budget (which seems to be common with realtors) you can:

• Use a shared host (on an accommodating hosting service).
• You will need to create a local database for displaying your results.
• Set up a cron job to pull down changes from the RETS server say every 24 hours preferably when the server is likely to not be under load, like at night.
• Construct a RETS query to only pull listings from the area you care about.
• Query the server for changes and only pull changed/new listings.
• Save on bandwidth and server load if your RETS service has an image hosting service, rather than download them to your server.

But you are playing with fire - pulling a lot of records and images takes time and could lead to the hosting account being disabled.

NB: I would not necessarily rely on the change list from the RETS server. I have been burnt before by it giving invalid data.

Answer 5

Don't try to work with RETS using PHP, even if you're a master PHP developer, you will fail miserably because PHP is so not the tool for RETS processing.

That said. The defacto tool for RETS is libRETS and it has compatible swig bindings to Ruby, Python, and I believe C# as well as a native C++ implementation.

Lastly, its technically possible to have a web request fire off a RETS query, get the results back, and then transform the data for presentation, but its very possible for a relatively simple query to take upwards of 15-30 seconds due to load on the remote RETS server. So its usually better to build or find software to replicate all or some of an MLS's active listings.