Hack 95 Leaving Feedback

Use the LeaveFeedback API call to more easily leave feedback.

The eBay API includes extensive support both for leaving feedback for other users and for retrieving comments from your own feedback profile.

Here's a sample script used to leave feedback for another user with whom you've had a transaction (save it as leavefeedback.pl):

#!/usr/bin/perl
require 'ebay.pl';

$item_id      = shift @ARGV;
$target_user  = shift @ARGV;
$comment_type = shift @ARGV;
$comment      = shift @ARGV;

defined($comment) && $comment_type =~ m:^(positive|negative|neutral)$:
          or die "Usage: $0 item user positive/negative/neutral comment";

my $rsp = call_api({ Verb => 'LeaveFeedback',
              DetailLevel => 0,
                   ItemId => $item_id,
               TargetUser => $target_user,
              CommentType => $comment_type,
                  Comment => $comment});
if ($rsp->{Errors}) {
    print_error($rsp)
} else {
    print "Status: $rsp->{LeaveFeedback}{Status}";
}

You can leave feedback with this script by calling it from the command line, like this:

leavefeedback.pl item other_user positive 'Smooth transaction'

where item is the item number of the transaction and other_user is the user ID of the user for whom you're leaving feedback.

The LeaveFeedback API call follows the same rules as does eBay.com, namely that you can leave feedback only for a user with whom you're involved in a transaction. When testing this feature in the Sandbox (see [Hack #82]), you'll need to set up two users and a handful of auctions. If the seller has a feedback rating of less than 10, however, you won't be able to use the Buy-It-Now feature. Instead, start an ordinary auction, bid on it with the other user ID, and then end the auction early.