Quickstart: Use Ruby to call the Bing Web Search API
Use this quickstart to make your first call to the Bing Web Search API. This Ruby application sends a search request to the API, and shows the JSON response. Although this application is written in Ruby, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages.
Prerequisites
Here are a few things that you'll need before running this quickstart:
- Ruby 2.4 or later
- A subscription key
Create a project and declare required modules
Create a new Ruby project in your favorite IDE or editor. Then, require net/https
for requests, uri
for URI handling, and json
to parse the response.
require 'net/https'
require 'uri'
require 'json'
Define variables
A few variables must be set before we can continue:
Confirm that the
uri
andpath
values are valid and replace theaccessKey
value with a subscription key from your Azure account.Optionally, customize the search query by replacing the value for
term
.
accessKey = "YOUR_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY"
uri = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com"
path = "/v7.0/search"
term = "Microsoft Bing Search Services"
if accessKey.length != 32 then
puts "Invalid Bing Search API subscription key!"
puts "Please paste yours into the source code."
abort
end
Make a request
Use this code to make a request and handle the response:
# Construct the endpoint uri.
uri = URI(uri + path + "?q=" + URI.escape(term))
puts "Searching the Web for: " + term
# Create the request.
request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
request['Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key'] = accessKey
# Get the response.
response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
http.request(request)
end
Print the response
Validate the headers, format the response data as JSON, and print the results.
puts "\nRelevant Headers:\n\n"
response.each_header do |key, value|
# Header names are lower-cased.
if key.start_with?("bingapis-") or key.start_with?("x-msedge-") then
puts key + ": " + value
end
end
puts "\nJSON Response:\n\n"
puts JSON::pretty_generate(JSON(response.body))
Put it all together
The last step is to validate your code and run it. If you'd like to compare your code with ours, here's the complete program:
require 'net/https'
require 'uri'
require 'json'
accessKey = "enter key here"
uri = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com"
path = "/v7.0/search"
term = "Microsoft Bing Search Services"
if accessKey.length != 32 then
puts "Invalid Bing Search API subscription key!"
puts "Please paste yours into the source code."
abort
end
uri = URI(uri + path + "?q=" + URI.escape(term))
puts "Searching the Web for: " + term
request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
request['Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key'] = accessKey
response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
http.request(request)
end
puts "\nRelevant Headers:\n\n"
response.each_header do |key, value|
if key.start_with?("bingapis-") or key.start_with?("x-msedge-") then
puts key + ": " + value
end
end
puts "\nJSON Response:\n\n"
puts JSON::pretty_generate(JSON(response.body))
Example JSON response
Responses from the Bing Web Search API are returned as JSON. This sample response has been truncated to show a single result.
{
"_type": "SearchResponse",
"queryContext": {
"originalQuery": "Microsoft Cognitive Services"
},
"webPages": {
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=Microsoft+cognitive+services",
"totalEstimatedMatches": 22300000,
"value": [
{
"id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#WebPages.0",
"name": "Microsoft Cognitive Services",
"url": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services",
"displayUrl": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services",
"snippet": "Knock down barriers between you and your ideas. Enable natural and contextual interaction with tools that augment users' experiences via the power of machine-based AI. Plug them in and bring your ideas to life.",
"deepLinks": [
{
"name": "Face",
"url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/face/",
"snippet": "Add facial recognition to your applications to detect, identify, and verify faces using the Face service from Microsoft Azure. ... Cognitive Services; Face service;"
},
{
"name": "Text Analytics",
"url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/text-analytics/",
"snippet": "Cognitive Services; Text Analytics API; Text Analytics API . Detect sentiment, ... you agree that Microsoft may store it and use it to improve Microsoft services, ..."
},
{
"name": "Computer Vision API",
"url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/computer-vision/",
"snippet": "Extract the data you need from images using optical character recognition and image analytics with Computer Vision APIs from Microsoft Azure."
},
{
"name": "Emotion",
"url": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/en-us/emotion-api",
"snippet": "Cognitive Services Emotion API - microsoft.com"
},
{
"name": "Bing Speech API",
"url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/speech/",
"snippet": "Add speech recognition to your applications, including text to speech, with a speech API from Microsoft Azure. ... Cognitive Services; Bing Speech API;"
},
{
"name": "Get Started for Free",
"url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/",
"snippet": "Add vision, speech, language, and knowledge capabilities to your applications using intelligence APIs and SDKs from Cognitive Services."
}
]
}
]
},
"relatedSearches": {
"id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#RelatedSearches",
"value": [
{
"text": "microsoft bot framework",
"displayText": "microsoft bot framework",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+bot+framework"
},
{
"text": "microsoft cognitive services youtube",
"displayText": "microsoft cognitive services youtube",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+youtube"
},
{
"text": "microsoft cognitive services search api",
"displayText": "microsoft cognitive services search api",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+search+api"
},
{
"text": "microsoft cognitive services news",
"displayText": "microsoft cognitive services news",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+news"
},
{
"text": "ms cognitive service",
"displayText": "ms cognitive service",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=ms+cognitive+service"
},
{
"text": "microsoft cognitive services text analytics",
"displayText": "microsoft cognitive services text analytics",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+text+analytics"
},
{
"text": "microsoft cognitive services toolkit",
"displayText": "microsoft cognitive services toolkit",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+toolkit"
},
{
"text": "microsoft cognitive services api",
"displayText": "microsoft cognitive services api",
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+api"
}
]
},
"rankingResponse": {
"mainline": {
"items": [
{
"answerType": "WebPages",
"resultIndex": 0,
"value": {
"id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#WebPages.0"
}
}
]
},
"sidebar": {
"items": [
{
"answerType": "RelatedSearches",
"value": {
"id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#RelatedSearches"
}
}
]
}
}
}