Create RSS Feeds from Amazon Listings

If an Amazon Category page does not offer RSS feeds, you can use PHP to easily create one. The PHP snippet below will download a page from the Amazon website and converts the products into an RSS feed so you can easily track when new items are added to that category.

The RSS feed will have the product name, the title, the permalink (URL) and the thumbnail image.

<?php

  $now   = date("D, d M Y H:i:s T");
  $ASIN  = $url = $img = $title = $bio = $name = "";

  $head = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>';
  $head .= '<rss version="2.0">';
  $head .= '<channel>';
  $head .= '<title>Amazon </title>';
  $head .= '<link>http://www.amazon.com</link>';
  $head .= '<description>Amazon RSS Feed</description>';

  $url = "http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store/zgbs/digital-text/";

  $text = file_get_html($url);

  foreach ($text->find("div.zg_item_compact") as $class) {
    foreach ($class->find('strong.price') as $price) {
      if ($price->plaintext == "Free") {
              $rssfeed .= '<item>';
              foreach ($class->find("div.zg_title a") as $book) {
                preg_match("/\/dp\/(.*)\/ref/", $book->href, $matches);
                $ASIN  = trim($matches[1]);
                $url   = "http://www.amazon.com/dp/" . $ASIN . "/?tag=ctrlqorg-20";
                $img   = "http://images.amazon.com/images/P/" . $ASIN . ".01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg";
                $title = htmlentities(trim($book->plaintext));
                $rssfeed .= '<title>' . $title . '</title>';
                $rssfeed .= '<link>' . $url . '</link>';
                $rssfeed .= '<guid isPermaLink="true">' . $url . '</guid>';
                $rssfeed .= '<description>';
              }
              foreach ($class->find("div.zg_byline a") as $author) {
                  $bio  = "http://www.amazon.com" . $author->href . "/?tag=publisherapi-20";
                  $name = htmlentities(trim($author->plaintext));
                  $rssfeed .= 'By <a href="' . $authorURL . '">' . $name . '</a>';
              }
              $rssfeed .= '</description>';
              $rssfeed .= '<pubDate>' . $now . '</pubDate>';
              $rssfeed .= '</item>';
          }
      }
  }

  $footer  = '</channel></rss>';
  $rssfeed = $head . $rssfeed . $footer;
  $fh      = fopen("amazon.rss", "w");

  fwrite($fh, $rssfeed);
  fclose($fh);

?>

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