################################################################################
# File: ....................... README
# Original Author: ............ Jeff Nokes
# Last modified by: ........... Jeff Nokes
# Last modified: .............. 03/15/2007 @ 14:46
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DESCRIPTION

eBay Perl SDK

This library is intended to provide a Perl based interface for the public eBay
web services API (http://developer.ebay.com).  Inside this library are a group
of modules used to provide eBay API generic and XML interface specific class
hierarchies, that are extended via the auto-generated API call/data-type
sub-classes.  The tools provided in this library contain a script used to
generate these sub-classes on the developer's behalf; please reference
INSTALL for more information on how to use this tool.

This is a pure-Perl library, that is almost entirely object oriented (OO).  And
in keeping with traditional Perl philosophies, it was decided to utilize as many
existing CPAN modules/libraries as possible, to implement it.

eBay Inc. currently supports the following interfaces to its API:

  REST (partially supported as of 12/11/2006)
  SOAP
  XML

This library currently supports the following eBay supported interfaces:

  XML

... and was designed so that future support for other protocol
interfaces could be easily added.


This library includes the following features:

  (1)  Ability to make XML API calls to the eBay web services public interface
       using HTTP/HTTPS.

  (2)  Ability to: execute a single API call in a serial fashion; group multiple
       API calls to be executed in serial, or asynchronously in parallel via
       the LWP::Parallel module.

  (3)  Ability to stub out eBay API error responses for error handling testing,
       simulating a real API error, even though a real request was never sent.

  (4)  Ability to make most global library configurations using ENVironment
       variables and/or OO methods.

  (5)  Error exception class, extendable to the end-user's Perl application if
       one so chooses.

  (6)  Tool to auto-generate all specific API call/data-type classes.  As eBay
       up rev's its API interface version, the end-user can just re-generate
       all of the call/data-type classes with the new WSDL or Schema (.xsd)
       published by eBay.  (Reference INSTALL for more information)


For more information on how to use eBay's web services API, please visit the
publicly available web site, http://developer.ebay.com.





INSTALLATION

This library can be installed via the traditional Perl process of:

   perl Makefile.PL
   make
   make test
   make install

Users may also use `perl -MCPAN` if the module is available on CPAN mirrors.
Please reference INSTALL for more information on the recommended full
intallation process.





DEPENDENCIES

This module requires this version (or higher) of Perl:

   5.008001


This module requires these versions (or higher) of other modules and libraries:

   Compress::Zlib      v 1.41
   Crypt::SSLeay       v 0.51
   Cwd                 v 3.18
   Data::Dumper        v 2.121
   Devel::StackTrace   v 1.03
   Encode              v 1.9801
   Error               v 0.15
   Exception::Class    v 1.14
   Exporter            v 5.567
   File::Find          v 1.05
   File::Path          v 1.06
   File::Spec          v 3.18
   Getopt::Long        v 2.34
   HTTP::Headers       v 1.47
   HTTP::Request       v 1.34
   HTTP::Status        v 1.28
   IO::File            v 1.10
   LWP::Parallel       v 2.57
   LWP::UserAgent      v 2.023
   Params::Validate    v 0.74
   Scalar::Util        v 1.11
   Time::HiRes         v 1.51
   Time::localtime     v 1.02
   XML::Simple         v 2.09
   XML::Writer         v 0.600
   XML::Tidy           v 1.2.54HJnFa

Note:  The module versions mentioned above are the versions that this library
was developed and tested with.  It is assumed that all later versions of
these same modules will also work, but please reference each module's specific
documentation for it's functional API preservation, or lack thereof.





CREDITS

  Original authors/contributors in alphabetical order:

    Robert Bradley
    Mike Evans
    Milenko Milanovic
    Jeff Nokes

    perl@ebay.com





COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE

Copyright (C) 1995-2006 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This library is licensed under the terms of the Common Development and
Distribution License ("CDDL").  The full text of this license is available
with this module distribution in the file named:

COMMON_DEVELOPMENT_AND_DISTRIBUTION_LICENSE.html

