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Question

How to send data to an API call and get it back, using zillow.com API

Answer 1

A:

Based on http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/APIFAQ.htm#devkit, there is no JavaScript API. Because of this (and cross-domain restrictions) you have to use a server-side language. I'll add a simple Java example.

EDIT: Okay, here goes. It just takes the street address and city/state, and returns a formatted value. Error-checking left out:

import java.text.NumberFormat;

import org.w3c.dom.*;
import org.xml.sax.*;

import javax.xml.parsers.*;

import javax.xml.transform.*;
import javax.xml.transform.dom.*;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.*;

import java.io.*;

import java.util.Currency;

public class Zillow
{
    private static final DocumentBuilderFactory dbFac;
    private static final DocumentBuilder docBuilder;
    static
    {
        try
        {
            dbFac = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
            docBuilder = dbFac.newDocumentBuilder();
        }
        catch(ParserConfigurationException e)
        {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    }
    private static final String DEEP_URL = "http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetDeepSearchResults.htm";
    private static final String ZESTIMATE_URL = "http://www.zillow.com/webservice/GetZestimate.htm";

    private static final String ZWSID = ...;

    private static final NumberFormat nf = NumberFormat.getCurrencyInstance();

    // Returns Zestimate value for address.
    public static String getValuation(String address, String cityStateZip) throws SAXException, IOException
    {
        Document deepDoc = docBuilder.parse(DEEP_URL + 
                                        "?zws-id=" + ZWSID + 
                                        "&address=" + address + 
                                        "&citystatezip=" + cityStateZip);
        Element firstResult = (Element)deepDoc.getElementsByTagName("result").item(0);
        String zpid = firstResult.getElementsByTagName("zpid").item(0).getTextContent();
        Document valueDoc = docBuilder.parse(ZESTIMATE_URL + 
                                             "?zws-id=" + ZWSID + 
                                             "&zpid=" + zpid);
        Element zestimate = (Element)valueDoc.getElementsByTagName("zestimate").item(0);
        Element amount = (Element)zestimate.getElementsByTagName("amount").item(0);
        String currency = amount.getAttribute("currency");
        nf.setCurrency(Currency.getInstance(currency));
        return nf.format(Double.parseDouble(amount.getTextContent()));
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable
    {
        String address = args[0];
        String cityStateZip = args[1];
        System.out.println(getValuation(address, cityStateZip));
    }
}

Matthew Flaschen 2009-07-07 06:56:26

Awesome man, thanks a bunch. I wound up using PHP to do this as I know it better.

thatryan 2009-07-08 10:13:58

Cool. You might want to post your PHP code for the benefit of future searchers.

Matthew Flaschen 2009-07-09 01:08:31

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How to send data to an API call and get it back, using zillow.com API

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