Goodreads Developers discussion

I'm confused.


Sample URL shows a total-results field value of 38.

This API appears to return 20 results per page instead of the usual 50?

Total number of results via PHP was less than reported (31 instead of 38)? Actually looking at the XML, page 1 returned 15 (1-15), page 2 returned 16 but they were 21-36!

Trying the same call with "Sam" (and setting an artificial limit of 10 pages of results, total-results showed 12,291), I got 200 results, each page returned 20.

The title of the API is "Find books by title, author, or ISBN", but the search[field] parameter options are "one of title, author, or genre (default is all)".

Is 'search[field]' the actual parameter name?

If so, I presume it needs to be URL encoded as 'search%5bfield%5d'?

How does one search by ISBN (or does it validate a query as an ISBN and do that search)?

Why is genre listed as a search field option?

Pagination in the search api is broken. It's a known problem: unfortunately, we are currently busy with a couple of really big projects, so support for that issue has been lingering for a while. Sorry about that.

To search by ISBN put "isbn" as search field and your isbn value as "q" param. That should do it.

that explains pagination, perhaps add a temporary note to the API doc?

search by ISBN works, thanks.

What about why is genre listed as a search field option? (or should it be listed?)