[ic] Froogle.google.com anyone using this yet?, plus catalog changes?

Jay Sun interchange-users@icdevgroup.org
Fri Dec 20 14:59:32 2002


Yes, it is very useful.

Currently I just write a perl script and do a sql query and dump out the output in froogle's format. It is relatively straight forward, and good for the first upload.

However, if you updated your catalog and want to do a update froogle, it is not that simple. By default, interchange does not keep records of the last updated time for the product catalog items. So I got around to keep the dump records, and write a script to compare the dumps, and figure out what's been updated, and then create the update file. REALLY painful.

So generating a report of catalog changes will be a very useful feature.

J.
http://shops.suniant.com/shop/ 

--

On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 00:31:06  
 Philip S. Hempel wrote:
>Has anyone gotten involved in using froogle?
>http://froogle.google.com
>
>I have an account and am about to create the format
>that is in the pdf sent to me from google.
>
>One of the criteria is that the descriptions are
>to not have any html code for the data upload.
>
>This posses a problem since many of the descriptions we use
>have some form of html and many time exceed the required text lengths
>for the descriptions.
>
>Here is the description of the requirements
>
>Basic File Format
>  The basic file format has the following required parameters:
>  Tab-delimited text file
>  First line of the file is the header – must contain field names, all lower-case
>  Use the field names from the table below, and in the same column order
>  One line per item (use a newline or carriage return to terminate the line)
>  File encoding is LATIN1 (ASCII is fine, as it is a subset of LATIN1)
>  The following field elements are forbidden as part of the basic format. If you 
>want to include them, you must use the extended format. If you accidentally 
>include them as part of the basic format, products that contain errors will be 
>dropped from the feed.
>  Tabs, carriage returns, or newline characters may not be included inside any
>field, including the description.
>  Exactly one tab must separate each field. If there are extra tabs inserted
>between fields in a line, or at the end of a line, that product will be dropped.
>  HTML tags, comments, and escape sequences may not be included –
>description must be plain text.
>
>I am considering a couple of ways to do this and need some suggestions.
>
>1. Do a sql dump of the fields I need and run a script over the data
>to clean out html and other characters not allowed.
>
>2. Work this out through IC and produce the clean descriptions with IC.
>
>I would almost think that it would be easier with IC with it's many ways
>of filtering content.
>
>Just one suggestion for the Dev group, If a tag could be built into IC that
>would be put into 5.0 supporting Froogle, this would be a great selling point 
>for IC.
>
>* "IC is Froogle friendly, auto output of the required data structure for
>Googles' Froogle products search engine. Has the ability to use both the
>basic format and extended formats used in the Froogle search engine uploads." *
>
>I would like some comments on what direction would be the easiest way to
>start. What caveats I could run into with either format.
>
>Suggestions would be appreciated.
>
>-- 
>Philip S. Hempel
>
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>


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