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Associate Engine : Configuration | |
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What is it?
You configure Associate Engine by setting configuration variables in a file called ae.ini that comes with Associate Engine. The ae.ini configuration file sets the global preferences of Associate Engine such as the default number of results to show per page.
Do I have to change anything? No
The configuration variables have default values so you don't need to change them unless you want Associate Engine to work differently from its default behaviour.
Note: You do not use the ae.ini configuration file to specify what to search for (e.g.: Harry Potter books). To specify what to search for, you use Script Parameters instead of configuration variables.
What kind of settings can I change?
There are two types of settings that you can change:
Formatting settings: such as number of results to display per page, so you do not have to specify the value as part of each link.
Technical settings: such as cache size and cache stale time.
Where is it and how do I edit it?
The ae.ini file comes with Associate Engine and is stored in the same directory on your webserver where the Associate Engine ae.pl script file is located.
The ae.ini file is a text file that you can open and edit using a text editor such as Windows Notepad or Windows Wordpad. (Tip: To run Windows Notepad, select
Start > Run... and type notepad then press Enter.) After you have edited the ae.ini file, you will have to reupload it to your webserver for the changes to take effect.
Can I have more than one configuration file?
Yes, you can have sequentially numbered configuration files and each one will be loaded one after the other. This allows you to use the default ae.ini file and put your custom settings in ae-1.ini (that's a one after the dash). In the future, if an updated ae.ini file is released, you can overwrite your copy and you would still have your custom settings in your ae-1.ini file.
Associate Engine loads the configuration files in the following order if they exist:
- ae-0.ini, ae-0-ini.txt
- ae.ini, ae-ini.txt
- ae-1.ini, ae-2.ini, ae-3.ini, ..., ae-9.ini
- ae-1-ini.txt, ae-2-ini.txt, ae-3-ini.txt, ..., ae-9-ini.txt
- ae.key, ae-key.txt
Using filenames that end with .txt is useful because you can then double-click them in Windows and they will open in the Windows Notepad text editor for viewing/editing. Double-clicking a .ini or .key file in Windows will not open the file in Windows Notepad.
This feature is also useful if you have a dedicated webserver and want to share a common ae.ini file among all your websites (e.g.: share the same file by using linux/unix symbolic links). If you want to custom the configuration for a particular website, you would create a ae-1.ini file in that website.
Click here for a sample ae.ini configuration file.
The ae.ini configuration file contains one or more lines with the following formats:
variableName = variableValue
variableName = variableValue #comment
variableName variableValue
variableName variableValue #comment
#commentFor example, the following line causes the cache stale time to be set to 1 hour:
cache.stale 1 # set cache stale time
Any spaces or tabs before the variableName are ignored. The variableName and variableValue must be separated by a space or a tab or an equal sign (=); extra spaces and tabs around the equal sign are ignored. Blank lines and comments (indicated by #) are ignored. Do not follow the value by any characters other than spaces or tabs or #.
See Configuration Variables for details on what each configuration variable does and what values you can assign to each.
You can verify that the ae.ini configuration file is being loaded by Associate Engine. To do that, you use the cfg parameter.
www.domain.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl?cfg=CFGVALUE
Note: substitute your domain name and adjust path
"/cgi-bin/" and filename "ae.pl" if different on your web server.To prevent other people from viewing your configuration, the CFGVALUE value is based on your particular amazon.com associate ID. To find out what your CFGVALUE is, look in your
ae-key.txt key file. This file is a text file so you can open it with a text editor such as Windows Notepad, or use the command"type ae-key.txt" in a Windows MS-DOS Prompt window.Suppose you see the following text in your
ae-key.txt file:
cfg 1234-5678
Thus your CFGVALUE value is 1234-5678 and you would use something like the following URL to view your configuration:
www.domain.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl?cfg=1234-5678
WARNING: Keep your CFGVALUE value confidential. Do not give it out to other people.
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