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Bookboon API PHP Class

The PHP class is a wrapper for the Bookboon.com API. Because this is just a wrapper class you should familiarize yourself with the REST api before using it.

Usage

To use the Bookboon AIP you are required to have an application id and secret ($API_ID and $API_SECRET below), see the API page for details. Install via composer:

composer require bookboon/api

To use it without composer, use with any PSR-0 compatible autoloader or require every file manually.

The simplest way to get a book is to use the getBook method:

$bookboon = new Bookboon($API_ID, $API_SECRET, array(/*optional named array to set request headers*/));
$book = $bookboon->getBook("BOOK_GUID");

That will return a Book object with public getters for every property. There are plenty more simple get functions:

$category = $bookboon->getCategory("CATEGORY_GUID"); // return Category object
$reviews = $bookboon->getReviews("BOOK_GUID"); // return array of Review
$search = $bookboon->getSearch("query text"); // return array of Book
$recommendations = $bookboon->getRecommendations(array("BOOK_ID_1", "BOOK_ID_2"); // return array of Book
$questions = $bookboon->getQuestions(); // return array of Question

Finally you can download a book usually the following, you need to send a unique user identifier handle for every unique user (for instance a user id, email):

$url = $bookboon->getBookDownloadUrl("BOOK_GUID", array("handle" => "user@email"));
// Send the $url in a redirect header to the user

Important: Do NOT store this value as it will change constantly.

Use api raw

You can also use the api method to get database from the API. To pass variables to the API send an array with the api function:

/* The bacon-loving student */
$vars = array('post' => array( 'answer[0]' => '6230e12c-68d8-45d5-8f02-1d3997713150',
                               'answer[1]' => '5aca0fe1-0d93-41b1-8691-aa242a526f17'
                             )
             );

$bookboon->api('/questions', $vars);

Note: To make the php class more versatile you need to tell it whether to pass variables using POST or GET methods. The api function will only accept keys named 'post' and 'get' and parse their respective arrays into the correct query strings.

Result

Results from the api method is json decoded arrays of data directly from the API, if you use any of the other methods (getbooks, getCategories etc.) an appropiate object will be returned.

Exceptions

The wrapper will throw a few different exceptions. If API responds with an unhandled HTTP status such as if a variabls are missing (403), the posted data is malformed (400) or an unknown API error (500). You may wish to catch these errors, like so:

$bookboon = new Bookboon($API_ID, $API_SECRET);

try {
    print_r($bookboon->api('/recommendations', array(
        'get' => array(
            'books' => $book_id
        )));
} 
catch (NotFoundException $e) {
    // handle exception here
}

Right now we throw the following exceptions:

ApiSyntaxException - Usually missing or malformed parameters
AuthenticationException - Bad credentials
GeneralApiException - When some unknown goes wrong, please report this to us
NotFoundException - API returns not found status (404)

Cache

The wrapper class provides a cache interface to be used to speed up GET queries. At the moment only memcached is implemented. To set the cache provider use the setCache method:

$bookboon->setCache(new \Bookboon\Api\Memcached($server, $port, $timeToLive));

To implement your own provider cache software, make sure your interface imlements \Bookboon\Api\Cache. It only has three methods: save, get and delete, so it should be easy enough to do.