I am currently using eNom's PDQ and I was curious about using their API. I am a Cold Fusion programming learning ASP.NET. Are there any places that have step-by-step instruction and how do use the API? I was looking to start simple, but just using API to see if a domain name is available like on my PDQ.

Any help would be appreciated.

They have wonderful API documents

http://www.enom.com/resellers/ResponseCodes.pdf
http://www.enom.com/resellers/WebHostingAPICommandCatalog.pdf

You may need to login to your reseller account

http://www.enom.com/resellers/InterfaceInfo.asp also they have php, perl and asp i belive no coldfusion yet

I am learning ASP.NET so I will probably use that. Maybe I just need a Dummies Guide to APIs. Do i treat it like pulling from anyother DB only that this one is with enom and not on mymachine?

The API protocol is rather simple. You have just to post web request rather with method POST and in HTTPS.

I'm not sure because I'm a newbie in ASP.NET but you have a COM interface you can use. Look at http://www.enom.com/resellers/InterfaceCOM.asp

so what if you cant use the COM method isn't there any way to use CFM??
Did you find other solutions MyNameSolutions??

All enom commands are sent via a https post so if you can write a wrapper in your favorite language then you are sorted - you just need a method to send and then parse the response from the enom server.

For example in Perl you might use LWP and in PHP you could use CURL to send the HTTPS POST

I am sure there would be a similar function in coldfusion.

eNom's API functions like a webservice (XML over HTTP), though it was originally created long before there was a "webservice" buzzword, so you don't often hear eNom refer to it as such.

The API can either return XML, text, or HTML, depending on the responsetype parameter passed to the webservice API command.

eNom has available a proprietary dll object you can use to communicate with the API, which is available for download from the API webpage.

An alternative is to use Microsoft's ServerXMLHTTP object, or to use ASP.NET's native webservice functionality.