eBay provides two levels of access for developers: the API, which is a cross-platform XML-over-HTTPS affair, and an SDK for Windows (specifically designed to accelerate COM and .NET developers).
A while back, we dropped support for developing SDK applications on Windows 98. You can still develop eBay apps that run on Windows 98, you just have to use the API. This means you don’t get a lot of the XML- and HTTPS-handling goodness provided by the SDK. And unfortunately there weren’t any good code examples of how to use the API from VB6…until now.
I’m insane, so I wrote that uses the API only, not the SDK. Note that you should absolutely use the SDK if you’re developing on VB6 (or .NET) with a later version of Windows — don’t use raw API calls on Windows 2000 or later, even you are insane like me. But if you are one of the four people in the world who uses VB6 on Windows 98 to develop eBay apps, this code example goes out to you! (You might also find this interesting if you want an introductory peek into how the eBay API works.)
This code example doesn’t do anything particularly dazzling, it just formats and submits an XML document to eBay’s "sandbox" (test) server and gets back the eBay "official time". Fun fact: only about two-thirds of the items sold on eBay are actually sold at auction (the rest are fixed-price or "Buy It Now" listings). But for those items that are listed in an auction format, having auction management software that knows the correct time as defined by eBay is pretty important. Hence, the GeteBayOfficialTime API call. (GeteBayOfficialTime is also a nice one to use for demonstrations because it’s one of the simplest calls in our library of 40 or so API methods.)
You’ll need to get a developer key from the eBay Developer Web site and plug it into the configuration file of this application for it to work. Feel free to post comments or questions here or (better yet) on our developer forums.
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Hello Jefrey,
I would like to more about Ebay programming (i have referred there documentation and apis), if you have any sample code, it will be helpful.
Regards
John Joseph
I responded to you privately, but for anyone else who’s reading this…the code examples are in the SDK download and in the documentation, all on http://developer.ebay.com. If you have any specific questions about something you’re trying to code, feel free to ask me or post on our developer message boards.