WooCommerce REST API Client Library

With WooCommerce 2.1 now out and about, it brings with it an array of new features and changes. One of these new features is the all new WooCommerce REST API.

The WooCommerce REST API comes bundled with WooCommerce 2.1+ and allows you all sorts of API calls to interact with your WooCommerce store data. You can get access to your Order, Customer, Coupon, Product and Reporting data all through the API.

Having it be a new API interacting with it can sometimes be a difficult task, that is why most software with API’s offer some sort of API Client Library which makes interacting with the API a breeze.

I have been spending quite a lot of time playing around and testing the API since its first commit into WooCommerce core and due to this built quite an easy to use and extendable API Client Library that I used to test and later on refined to make available to the public for use.

The WooCommerce REST API has two authentication methods, one legged oAuth 1.1, and Basic HTTP authentication, the method being used is all dependent on whether your WooCommerce store has a valid SSL certificate and if you have secure checkout enabled. I have developed the WooCommerce REST API Client Library to support both methods as the WooCommerce REST API require you to use oAuth when you have no valid SSL certificate and Basic authentication when you have secure checkout enabled with a valid SSL certificate.

Enabling the WooCommerce REST API

In order to enable the WooCommerce REST API and to start using it you will need to enable it in your WooCommerce settings.

This can be done by going to WooCommerce -> Settings -> General tab in the WordPress admin area, and then making sure the Enable the REST API option is checked. This should be checked by default.

Generating API Keys

In order to access data through the WooCommerce REST API you will require a Consumer Key and Secret. This is used to authenticate the API calls and to ensure that the call being made can access the data it is trying to access.

API Consumer Keys and Secrets are tied to users, which allows WooCommerce to restrict access to certain data based on the user role, so for instance if you set up the user to only have access to products and they try to access orders with their API details they will not be able to.

To generate API details head to either Users -> All Users or Users -> Your Profile in the WordPress admin area. If you followed the Users -> All Users path you will need to search for the user you want to generate API credentials for and edit it.

Once you are on the edit profile page, scroll down to the bottom of the page, there should be a checkbox to generate API Keys, check this and save the profile. Once the page refreshes, if you scroll down again there will be a Consumer Key and Consumer Password listed, and if you are a site admin you will also have the option to select read/write access.

Communicating with the WooCommerce REST API

Once you have the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret you are now ready to start interacting with the WooCommerce REST API.

This is where the WooCommerce REST API Client Library comes into play, you can now head to the WooCommerce REST API Client Library page on GitHub and download the PHP client library from there.

Once you have downloaded the PHP client library you will find a couple of file, the important one here is class-wc-api-client.php, this is the file you will need to use to be able to make use of the client library and make calls to the WooCommerce REST API. There is also a folder called example which shows you how to interact with the client library in order to make calls to your WooCommerce store.

Using the WooCommerce REST API Client Library

If the example code provided with the client library is not enough and the documentation listed on the GitHub page does not explain it well enough here is a quick intro on how to get started using the client library with the WooCommerce REST API.

Connecting to the REST API
In order to connect to the REST API of your store you will need to have the URL to your store as well as your Consumer Key and Consumer Secret ready. Use the following PHP code to include the client library and access the WooCommerce REST API of your store. Be sure to use https if you have secure checkout enabled on your site.


<?php
// Include the client library
require_once 'class-wc-api-client.php';
$consumer_key = 'ck_fcedaba8f0fcb0fb4ae4f1211a75da72'; // Add your own Consumer Key here
$consumer_secret = 'cs_9914968ae9adafd3741c818bf6d704c7'; // Add your own Consumer Secret here
$store_url = 'http://localhost/&#39;; // Add the home URL to the store you want to connect to here
// Initialize the class
$wc_api = new WC_API_Client( $consumer_key, $consumer_secret, $store_url );
?>

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woocommerce-rest-api.php

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Making a call to the REST API
Once the client library has been initiated you can use the api object to make calls to the WooCommerce REST API, all the calls will return the data in JSON decoded format.


<?php
// Get all orders
$orders = $wc_api->get_orders();
// Output the order object retrieved from the API
print_r( $orders );
?>

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woocommerce-rest-api.php

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And that is it, for more documentation on all the available function calls, and how to call custom API endpoints added through extensions etc please see the README.md file on the GitHub page

Contributions are welcome, if you spot a bug or would like to add an enhancement feel free to fork and send a pull request.