Pillow - Zillow PHP client

This library provides a PHP interface for the Zillow API (see: http://www.zillow.com/howto/api/APIOverview.htm)

Requirements

• PHP >= 5.2
• PHP CURL extension

Examples

Get Property - Basic Use

    require '/path/to/pillow/lib/pillow.php';

    $pf = new Pillow_Factory( 'your zws id provided by Zillow' );

    //Third argument specifies regular or Deep Property search
    $property = $factory->findExactProperty($address, $csz, TRUE);

    echo "lat : "   , $property->latitude   , "<br />";
    echo "lon : "   , $property->longitude  , "<br />";
    echo "bath : "  , $property->bathrooms  , "<br />";
    echo "beds : "  , $property->bedrooms   , "<br />";

Get Property - with error handling

    require '/path/to/pillow/lib/pillow.php';

    $pf = new Pillow_Factory( 'your zws id provided by Zillow' );

    try {

        //$search will be an array with 0 or more Pillow_Property objects. Exact
        // matches will be found at $search[0]
        $search = $pf->findDeepProperties( 'some address', 'city state or zip' );

    } catch (Exception $e) {
        
        //Your code to handle exceptions

    }

Get a Zillow Zestimate

    require '/path/to/pillow/lib/pillow.php';

    $pf = new Pillow_Factory( 'your zws id provided by Zillow' );

    try {

        $search = $pf->findDeepProperties( 'some address', 'city state or zip' );

        if( count($search) > 0 )
        {
            echo "zestimate value: ", $search[0]->zestimate->amount;
        }

    } catch (Exception $e) {

        //Your code to handle exceptions

    }

    

Get a Zillow Chart url

    require '/path/to/pillow/lib/pillow.php';

    $pf = new Pillow_Factory( 'your zws id provided by Zillow' );

    try {
        $search = $pf->findDeepProperties( 'some address', 'city state or zip' );
    } catch (Exception $e) {
        //Your code to handle exceptions
    }

    if( count($search) > 0 )
    {
        try {

            $chart = $search[0]->getChart( Pillow_Property::CHART_UNIT_DOLLAR );
            echo "chart url: ", $chart->url, "\n";

        } catch (Exception $e) {

            //Your code to handle exceptions

        }
    }

Get Comparables for a Property

    require '/path/to/pillow/lib/pillow.php';

    $pf = new Pillow_Factory( 'your zws id provided by Zillow' );

    try {

        $search = $pf->findDeepProperties( 'some address', 'city state or zip' );

    } catch (Exception $e) {

        //Your code to handle exceptions

    }

    if( count($search) > 0 )
    {
        try {

            $comparables = $search[0]->getDeepComps(2);

            foreach( $comparables as $comparable )
            {
                echo "comp bath : ", $comparable->bathrooms, "\n";
                echo "comp zestimate : ", $comparable->zestimate->amount, "\n";
            }

        } catch (Pillow_NoCompsException $e) {

            echo "no comps for this address\n";

        } catch (Exception $e) {

            print_r($e);

        }
    }

About Exceptions

The Zillow API can return quite a few different error codes. This php library will throw an appropriate Pillow_* exception for each of these. There are alot (see lib/pillow/Transporter.php). You can choose to handle each of these with try...catch and gain maximum flexibility. But, because they all inherit php's Exception class, you can catch just the Exception. This will make your code simpler.

The exception objects contain useful information for debugging. For example:

$e->getCode(); //Actual status code returned by Zillow service

$e->getMessage(); //Actual message returned by Zillow service

$e->getXmlObject(); //The actual Zillow returned xml as a SimpleXMLElement object

print_r($e); //Dump the whole Exception object