GetCategorySpecifics - Call Reference - eBay Trading Web Services

GetCategorySpecifics

Item Specifics are typical aspects of items in the same category. They enable users to classify items by presenting descriptive details in a structured way. For example, in a jewelry category, you might describe a locket using "Gemstone=Amber", but in a Washers & Dryers category, you might use "Type=Top-Loading" instead.

GetCategorySpecifics returns the most popular Item Specific names and values for each leaf category you request. (eBay determines the popularity based on several factors, such as the number of recent listings and/or recently sold listings in the same category that have used the same name or value.)

When you are listing an item, we recommend that you consider using these popular names and values in your Item Specifics, because standard terms can help buyers (and comparison shopping tools) understand the details of your item more easily. Also these names and values are more likely to be indexed for title and description searches in the future. If you don't see a name or value you need, you can add your own in your listing request. (If that name or value becomes popular, it may be recommended in these results over time.)

See ItemSpecificsEnabled in GetCategoryFeatures to determine which categories support listing with custom Item Specifics.

See Working with Custom Item Specifics.

Related calls:

AddItem - Sends data defining a new item (specified by a seller) to eBay, where it becomes a new listing. Returns the item ID for the new listing, and returns fees the seller will incur for the listing (not including the Final Value Fee, which cannot be calculated until the item is sold).
GetCategoryFeatures - Returns information about certain features that may only be applicable to certain categories on the site, such as particular listing durations, shipping term requirements, and Best Offer support.
GetCategories - Retrieves the latest eBay category hierarchy for a given eBay site. Information returned for each category includes the category name and the unique ID for the category (unique within the eBay site for which categories are retrieved). A category ID is a required input when you list most items.

GetCategorySpecifics Input

The box below lists all fields that could be included in the call request. To learn more about an individual field or its type, click its name in the box (or scroll down to find it in the table below the box).

See also Samples.

See also the Deprecated Objects link above. Fields presented in this color are deprecated, and fields presented in this color are (or soon will be) non-operational.

The XML prototype may be missing some XML fields and attributes. This is a documentation limitation only (see Limitations of This Document).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GetCategorySpecificsRequest xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">
  <!-- Standard Input Fields -->
  <ErrorLanguage> string </ErrorLanguage>
  <MessageID> string </MessageID>
  <Version> string </Version>
  <WarningLevel> WarningLevelCodeType </WarningLevel>
  <!-- Call-specific Input Fields -->
  <CategoryID> string </CategoryID>
  <!-- ... more CategoryID nodes here ... -->
  <LastUpdateTime> dateTime </LastUpdateTime>
  <MaxNames> int </MaxNames>
  <MaxValuesPerName> int </MaxValuesPerName>
  <Name> string </Name>
</GetCategorySpecificsRequest>

Argument	Type	Reqd?	Meaning
Standard Input Fields [Jump to call-specific fields]
ErrorLanguage	string	Optional	Use ErrorLanguage to return error strings for the call in a different language from the language commonly associated with the site that the requesting user is registered with. Specify the standard RFC 3066 language identification tag (e.g., en_US). ID--- country ----- ----- de_AT Austria de_CH Switzerland de_DE Germany en_AU Australia en_CA Canada en_GB United Kingdom en_SG Singapore en_US United States es_ES Spain fr_BE Belgium (French) fr_CA Canada (French) fr_FR France it_IT Italy nl_BE Belgium (Dutch) nl_NL Netherlands zh_CN China en_IN India en_IE Ireland zh_HK Hong Kong See Tags for the Identification of Languages.
MessageID	string	Optional	In most cases, all calls support a MessageID element in the request and a CorrelationID element in the response. If you pass a message ID in a request, we will return the same value in CorrelationID in the response. You can use this for tracking that a response is returned for every request and to match particular responses to particular requests. If you do not pass MessageID in the request, CorrelationID is not returned. Note: GetCategories, GetAttributesCS, GetCategory2CS, GetAttributesXSL, GetProductFinder, GetProductFinderXSL, and GetProductSearchPage are designed to retrieve very large sets of metadata that change once a day or less often. To improve performance, these calls return cached responses when you request all available data (with no filters). When this occurs, the MessageID and CorrelationID fields aren't applicable. However, if you specify an input filter to reduce the amount of data returned, the calls retrieve the latest data (not cached). When this occurs, MessageID and CorrelationID are applicable.
Version	string	Conditional	The version number of the API code that you are programming against (e.g., 549). The version you specify for a call has these basic effects: - It indicates the version of the code lists and other data that eBay should use to process your request. - It indicates the schema version you are using. You need to use a version that is greater than or equal to the lowest supported version. For the SOAP API: If you are using the SOAP API, this field is required. Specify the version of the WSDL your application is using. For the XML API: If you are using the XML API, this field has no effect. Instead, specify the version in the X-EBAY-API-COMPATIBILITY-LEVEL HTTP header. (If you specify Version in the body of an XML API request and it is different from the value in the HTTP header, eBay returns an informational warning that the value in the HTTP header was used instead.) See: HTTP Headers (XML API Only) eBay Schema Versioning Strategy Lowest Supported Version
WarningLevel	WarningLevelCodeType	Optional	Controls whether or not to return warnings when the application passes unrecognized or deprecated elements in a request. An unrecognized element is one that is not defined in any supported version of the schema. Schema element names are case-sensitive, so using WarningLevel can also help you remove any potential hidden bugs within your application due to incorrect case or spelling in field names before you put your application into the Production environment. WarningLevel only validates elements; it doesn't validate XML attributes. It also doesn't control warnings related to user-entered strings or numbers, or warnings for logical errors. We recommend that you only use this during development and debugging. Do not use this in requests in your production code. Applicable values: • High (in) Return warnings when the application passes unrecognized or deprecated elements in a request. • Low (in) Do not return warnings when the application passes unrecognized or deprecated elements in a request. This is the default value if WarningLevel is not specified. See Warning Level.
Call-specific Input Fields
CategoryID	string (repeatable)	Required	A leaf category to retrieve recommended Item Specifics for. (This call returns no results for a parent category.) To determine which leaf categories support custom Item Specifics, use GetCategoryFeatures and GetCategories. You can specify multiple leaf categories (but more categories can result in longer response times). If you specify the same ID twice, we use the first instance.
LastUpdateTime	dateTime	Optional	Causes the recommendation engine to check whether the list of popular Item Specifics for each specified category has changed since this date and time. If specified, this call returns no Item Specifics; it only returns whether the data has changed for any of the requested categories. Typically, you pass in the Timestamp that was returned the last time you refreshed the list of names and values for the same categories. If the Updated flag returns true for any categories in the response, call GetCategorySpecifics again for those categories to get the latest names and values. (As downloading all the data may affect your application's performance, it may help to only download Item Specifics for a category if they have changed since you last checked.)
MaxNames	int	Optional	Maximum number of Item Specifics to return per category (where each Item Specific is identified by a unique name within the category). Use this to retrieve fewer results per category. For example, if you only want up to 2 per category (the top 2 most popular names), specify 2. Min: 1. Max: 15 (see GeteBayDetails). Default: 15.
MaxValuesPerName	int	Optional	Maximum number of values to retrieve per Item Specific. Use this to retrieve fewer values per name. For example, if you only want the most popular value, specify 1. Min: 1. Max: 10 (see GeteBayDetails). Default: 10.
Name	string	Optional	The name of one Item Specific name to find values for. Use this if you want to find out whether a name that the seller provided has recommended values. If you specify multiple leaf categories in the request, the recommendation engine returns all matching names and values it finds for each of those categories. At the time of this writing, this value is case-sensitive. (Wildcards are not supported.) Max length: 30 (see GeteBayDetails).

GetCategorySpecifics Output

The box below lists all fields that might be returned in the call response. To learn more about an individual field or its type, click its name in the box (or scroll down to find it in the table below the box).

See also Samples.

See also the Deprecated Objects link above. Fields presented in this color are deprecated, and fields presented in this color are not returned (or soon will not be returned) or are not operational (or soon will be non-operational).

The XML prototype may be missing some XML fields and attributes. This is a documentation limitation only (see Limitations of This Document).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GetCategorySpecificsResponse xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">
  <!-- Standard Output Fields -->
  <Ack> AckCodeType </Ack>
  <Build> string </Build>
  <CorrelationID> string </CorrelationID>
  <Errors> ErrorType 
    <ErrorClassification> ErrorClassificationCodeType </ErrorClassification>
    <ErrorCode> token </ErrorCode>
    <ErrorParameters ParamID="string"> ErrorParameterType 
      <Value> string </Value>
    </ErrorParameters>
    <!-- ... more ErrorParameters nodes here ... -->
    <LongMessage> string </LongMessage>
    <SeverityCode> SeverityCodeType </SeverityCode>
    <ShortMessage> string </ShortMessage>
  </Errors>
  <!-- ... more Errors nodes here ... -->
  <HardExpirationWarning> string </HardExpirationWarning>
  <Timestamp> dateTime </Timestamp>
  <Version> string </Version>
  <!-- Call-specific Output Fields -->
  <CategoryItemSpecifics> CategoryItemSpecificsType 
    <CategoryID> string </CategoryID>
    <ItemSpecifics> NameValueListArrayType 
      <NameValueList> NameValueListType 
        <Name> string </Name>
      </NameValueList>
      <!-- ... more NameValueList nodes here ... -->
    </ItemSpecifics>
    <Updated> boolean </Updated>
  </CategoryItemSpecifics>
  <!-- ... more CategoryItemSpecifics nodes here ... -->
</GetCategorySpecificsResponse>

Return Value	Type	Returned?	Meaning
Standard Output Fields [Jump to call-specific fields]
Ack	AckCodeType	Always	A token representing the application-level acknowledgement code that indicates the response status (e.g., success). The AckCodeType list specifies the possible values for Ack. Applicable values: • CustomCode (out) Reserved for internal or future use. • Failure (out) Request processing failed • Success (out) Request processing succeeded • Warning (out) Request processing completed with warning information being included in the response message (Not all values in AckCodeType apply to this field.)
Build	string	Always	This refers to the specific software build that eBay used when processing the request and generating the response. This includes the version number plus additional information. eBay Developer Support may request the build information when helping you resolve technical issues.
CorrelationID	string	Conditionally	In most cases, all calls support a MessageID element in the request and a CorrelationID element in the response. If you pass a message ID in a request, we will return the same value in CorrelationID in the response. You can use this for tracking that a response is returned for every request and to match particular responses to particular requests. If you do not pass MessageID in the request, CorrelationID is not returned. Note: GetCategories, GetAttributesCS, GetCategory2CS, GetAttributesXSL, GetProductFinder, GetProductFinderXSL, and GetProductSearchPage are designed to retrieve very large sets of metadata that change once a day or less often. To improve performance, these calls return cached responses when you request all available data (with no filters). When this occurs, the MessageID and CorrelationID fields aren't applicable. However, if you specify an input filter to reduce the amount of data returned, the calls retrieve the latest data (not cached). When this occurs, MessageID and CorrelationID are applicable.
Errors	ErrorType (repeatable)	Conditionally	A list of application-level errors (if any) that occurred when eBay processed the request. See Error Handling.
Errors.ErrorClassification	ErrorClassificationCodeType	Conditionally	API errors are divided between two classes: system errors and request errors. Applicable values: • CustomCode (out) Reserved for internal or future use. • RequestError (out) An error has occurred either as a result of a problem in the sending application or because the application's end-user has attempted to submit invalid data (or missing data). In these cases, do not retry the request. The problem must be corrected before the request can be made again. If the problem is due to something in the application (such as a missing required field), the application must be changed. If the problem is a result of end-user data, the application must alert the end-user to the problem and provide the means for the end-user to correct the data. Once the problem in the application or data is resolved, resend the request to eBay with the corrected data. • SystemError (out) Indicates that an error has occurred on the eBay system side, such as a database or server down. An application can retry the request as-is a reasonable number of times (eBay recommends twice). If the error persists, contact Developer Technical Support. Once the problem has been resolved, the request may be resent in its original form.
Errors.ErrorCode	token	Conditionally	A unique code that identifies the particular error condition that occurred. Your application can use error codes as identifiers in your customized error-handling algorithms.
Errors.ErrorParameters	ErrorParameterType (repeatable)	Conditionally	This optional element carries a list of context-specific error variables that indicate details about the error condition. These are useful when multiple instances of ErrorType are returned.
Errors.ErrorParameters [ attribute ParamID ]	string	Conditionally	The index of the parameter in the list of parameter types returned within the error type.
Errors.ErrorParameters.Value	string	Conditionally	The value of the variable (e.g., the attribute set ID)
Errors.LongMessage	string	Conditionally	A more detailed description of the condition that raised the error.
Errors.SeverityCode	SeverityCodeType	Conditionally	Indicates whether the error is a severe error (causing the request to fail) or an informational error (a warning) that should be communicated to the user. Applicable values: • CustomCode (out) Reserved for internal or future use • Error (out) Application-level error • Warning (out) Warning or informational error
Errors.ShortMessage	string	Conditionally	A brief description of the condition that raised the error.
HardExpirationWarning	string	Conditionally	Expiration date of the user's authentication token. Only returned within the 7-day period prior to a token's expiration. To ensure that user authentication tokens are secure and to help avoid a user's token being compromised, tokens have a limited life span. A token is only valid for a period of time (set by eBay). After this amount of time has passed, the token expires and must be replaced with a new token.
Timestamp	dateTime	Always	This value represents the date and time when eBay processed the request. The time zone of this value is GMT and the format is the ISO 8601 date and time format (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSZ). See Time Values in the eBay Web Services guide for information about this time format and converting to and from the GMT time zone. Note: GetCategories, GetAttributesCS, GetCategory2CS, GetAttributesXSL, GetProductFinder, GetProductFinderXSL, and GetProductSearchPage are designed to retrieve very large sets of metadata that change once a day or less often. To improve performance, these calls return cached responses when you request all available data (with no filters). When this occurs, this time value reflects the time the cached response was created. Thus, this value is not necessarily when the request was processed. However, if you specify an input filter to reduce the amount of data returned, the calls retrieve the latest data (not cached). When this occurs, this time value does reflect when the request was processed.
Version	string	Always	The version of the response payload schema. Indicates the version of the schema that eBay used to process the request. See "Standard Data for All Calls" in the eBay Web Services Guide for information on using the response version when troubleshooting "CustomCode" values that appear in the response.
Call-specific Output Fields
CategoryItemSpecifics	CategoryItemSpecificsType (repeatable)	Conditionally	Contains the most popular Item Specifics, if any, for a category specified in the request, or contains information about whether the recommendations have changed for that category since the LastUpdateTime you requested. The most relevant Item Specifics are returned first. If a name has multiple values, the first value is more popular. This node returns empty (or it's not returned) for a category if there is no applicable data (such as when you request a parent category, a category that has no popular Item Specifics yet, or a duplicate category that was already returned). If you pass in the CategoryID and Name fields together, but no matching values are found for the name, eBay returns the name with no values (even if the name is not recommended). If custom Item Specifics are enabled for a leaf category you requested, but GetCategorySpecifics doesn't return any recommendations for that category, the seller can still specify their own custom Item Specifics for listings in that category.
CategoryItemSpecifics .CategoryID	string	Conditionally	The leaf category in which the associated Item Specifics are popular. This is always a category that you specified in the request. Only returned for categories that have popular Item Specifics, or when you also pass in the Name field. Max length: 10.
CategoryItemSpecifics .ItemSpecifics	NameValueListArrayType	Conditionally	Contains a list of Item Specifics that eBay recommends as most popular within the specified category. Not returned when you pass LastUpdateTime in the request.
CategoryItemSpecifics .ItemSpecifics.NameValueList	NameValueListType (repeatable)	Conditionally	Contains the name of an Item Specific, and one or more corresponding values, if any. In the AddItem family of calls, this is only required when the ItemSpecifics container is specified. In GetSearchResults, GetSearchResultsExpress, GetProducts, GetCategorySpecifics, (and soon in GetItem), this is only returned when the ItemSpecifics (or ItemSpecific) node is returned.
CategoryItemSpecifics .ItemSpecifics.NameValueList .Name	string	Conditionally	A name in a name/value pair. In the AddItem family of calls, this can be any name that the seller wants to use. However, to help buyers find items more easily, it is a good idea to try to use a recommended name when possible (see GetCategorySpecifics or GetItemRecommendations). You cannot specify the same name twice within the same listing. In the GetCategorySpecifics and GetItemRecommendations response, this is a recommended (popular) name to use for items in the specified category (e.g., "Brand" might be recommended, not "Manufacturer"). In the GetSearchResults response, this is an attribute name that was used in a listing. Specifically: If SearchRequest was used to perform a "Product Finder" search, this contains the name of one attribute (i.e, the name of one Item Specifics field). If IncludeCondition was true in the request, this returns the condition attribute name (e.g., "Item Condition"). In the GetSearchResultsExpress response, this is an attribute name that is defined for a catalog product. Only returned when ProductDetails is set to Fine. In the GetProducts response, this is an attribute name that is defined for a catalog product.
CategoryItemSpecifics.Updated	boolean	Conditionally	If true, the recommended Item Specifics for this category have changed since the time you specified (in LastUpdateTime). (In this case, we suggest you retrieve the latest data for the category.) If false, the recommended Item Specifics for this category have not changed since the time you specified. Only returned when you pass LastUpdateTime in the request.

GetCategorySpecifics Detail Controls

Detail Control: DetailLevel

This call does not support varying Detail Levels. You do not need to pass DetailLevel in the request.

GetCategorySpecifics Samples

An inline sample will be added in a future release. Please refer to the Samples section of the eBay Web Services Guide chapter for GetCategorySpecifics.

GetCategorySpecifics Change History

Version	Description
523 2007-07-25	(added) New call.

User-Contributed Notes

This document was generated with a customized version of the apireferencedocs tool [0.5M zip].

eBay Trading API Call Reference Version 579

eBay Trading API
Call Reference Version 579