README

A standalone PHP library for fetching and parsing App Store customer reviews from the iTunes RSS feed.

Features

Fetch reviews from any App Store (country-specific)
Support for pagination (up to 10 pages)
Sort by most recent or most helpful reviews
Minimal dependencies - only requires PHP 8.0+
Comprehensive error handling
Rate limiting detection
Returns normalized JSON data structure
Create parser from JSON configuration

Requirements

PHP 8.0 or higher
SimpleXML extension (usually included with PHP)

Installation

Install via Composer:

composer require appstore-reviews-parser/parser

Or add to your composer.json:

{
    "require": {
        "appstore-reviews-parser/parser": "^1.0"
    }
}

Usage

Using Method Chaining (Fluent Interface)

You can create a parser instance and configure it using method chaining:

use AppStoreReviewsParser\AppStoreReviewsParser;

// Create parser with method chaining
$parser = new AppStoreReviewsParser();
$result = $parser->setAppId('123456789')
    ->setCountry('us')
    ->setPage(1)
    ->setSortBy('mostrecent')
    ->setTimeout(30)
    ->fetch();

if ($result['success']) {
    foreach ($result['data'] as $review) {
        echo "Rating: {$review['rating']} - {$review['title']}\n";
    }
} else {
    echo "Error: " . $result['error'];
}

Using JSON Configuration

You can create a parser instance by passing a JSON string with configuration:

use AppStoreReviewsParser\AppStoreReviewsParser;

$jsonConfig = '{
    "app_id": "123456789",
    "country": "us",
    "page": 1,
    "sort_by": "mostrecent",
    "timeout": 30
}';

try {
    $parser = AppStoreReviewsParser::createFromJson($jsonConfig);
    $result = $parser->fetch();
    
    if ($result['success']) {
        print_r($result['data']);
    } else {
        echo "Error: " . $result['error'];
    }
} catch (Exception $e) {
    echo "Exception: " . $e->getMessage();
}

See examples/examples.php for more usage examples.

Available Configuration Options

app_id: Apple App Store ID (required unless using app_url with parse_from_url)
app_url: App Store URL to parse App ID from
parse_from_url: Whether to parse App ID from app_url (default: false). When true, app_id can be omitted
country: Two-letter country code (default: "us")
page: Page number 1-10 (default: 1)
sort_by: "mostrecent" or "mosthelpful" (default: "mostrecent")
timeout: Request timeout in seconds (default: 30)
user_agent: Custom user agent string

Response Format

The parser returns a JSON object with the following structure:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "1234567890",
      "title": "Great app!",
      "content": "I really love using this app. It helps me a lot.",
      "rating": 5,
      "author": "John Doe",
      "version": "1.2.3",
      "vote_count": 42,
      "vote_sum": 168,
      "country": "us",
      "date": "2024-01-15T10:30:00+00:00"
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "app_id": "123456789",
    "country": "us",
    "page": 1,
    "total_pages": 10,
    "total_reviews": 50,
    "sort_by": "mostrecent"
  },
  "error": null
}

Response Fields

success (boolean): Indicates whether the request was successful
data (array): Array of review objects, each containing:
- id (string): Unique review identifier
- title (string): Review title
- content (string): Review text content
- rating (integer): Star rating (1-5)
- author (string): Name of the reviewer
- version (string): App version the review was written for
- vote_count (integer): Number of votes the review received
- vote_sum (integer): Sum of all vote scores
- country (string): Country code of the App Store
- date (string): ISO 8601 formatted date of the review
meta (object): Metadata about the request (only present on success):
- app_id (string): App Store ID
- country (string): Country code used
- page (integer): Current page number
- total_pages (integer): Total available pages (max 10)
- total_reviews (integer): Number of reviews returned
- sort_by (string): Sort order used
error (string|null): Error message if the request failed, null otherwise

appstore-reviews-parser / parser

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