Search

Search for Apps

There are several methods helping you with your search for apps. First step is always the same – you need to make the class available:

require "google-play.php";
$google = new GooglePlay();

Listing available categories

$cats = $google->parseCategories();

This will return an array of all categories currently available at Google Play. The array is not pre-defined, but freshly retrieved on-call. You can use each of those categories to browse its apps, see below.

Listing apps in a given category

$category = 'TRAVEL_AND_LOCAL';
$apps = $google->parseCategory($category);

Returns an array of package names from the specified category. It's usually something around 25 entries – basically what Google Play shows on the corresponding category page.

Listing Charts and Latest Additions

$charts = $google->parseTopApps();
$news   = $google->parseNewApps();

Charts usually have some 50+ apps, news around 25. In both cases, a list of package names is returned.

Listing what Google considers "similar apps" and "other apps from this developer"

$packageName = "com.bezapps.flowdiademo";
$similar = $google->parseSimilar($packageName);
$other   = $google->parseOthers($packageName);

Both returns an array of package names; usually around 5 entries or less. On error, they return ["success"=>0, "message"=>"(what went wrong)"].

Searching for apps by keywords

$query = 'sms backup';
$apps = $google->parseSearch($query);

Returns an array of up to 50 package names, matching your search terms.

How to action as a crawler and find more applications?

$alphas = range('A', 'Z');
foreach($alphas as $alpha) {
    $apps=$google->parseSearch($alpha);
    insertApps($apps);
}

Or:

$alphas = range('A', 'Z');
foreach($alphas as $alpha) {
    $apps=$google->parseSearch($alpha);
    insertApps($apps);
    foreach($alphas as $alpha2) {
        $apps=$google->parseSearch($alpha.$alpha2);
        insertApps($apps);
    }
}

It's more:

$alphas = range('A', 'Z');
foreach($alphas as $alpha) {
  $apps=$google->parseSearch($alpha);
  insertApps($apps);
  foreach($alphas as $alpha2) {
    $apps=$google->parseSearch($alpha.$alpha2);
    insertApps($apps);
    foreach($alphas as $alpha3) {
      $apps=$google->parseSearch($alpha.$alpha2.$alpha3);
      insertApps($apps);
    }
  }
}