Quickstart: Perform a news search using Java and the Bing News Search REST API
Warning
On October 30, 2020, the Bing Search APIs moved from Azure AI services to Bing Search Services. This documentation is provided for reference only. For updated documentation, see the Bing search API documentation. For instructions on creating new Azure resources for Bing search, see Create a Bing Search resource through the Azure Marketplace.
Use this quickstart to make your first call to the Bing News Search API. This simple Java application sends a news search query to the API, and displays the JSON response.
Although this application is written in Java, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages.
The source code for this sample is available on GitHub.
Prerequisites
Create an Azure resource
Start using the Bing News Search API by creating one of the following Azure resources:
- Available through the Azure portal until you delete the resource.
- Use the free pricing tier to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.
- Available through the Azure portal until you delete the resource.
- Use the same key and endpoint for your applications, across multiple Azure AI services.
Create and initialize a project
Create a new Java project in your favorite IDE or editor, and import the following libraries:
import java.net.*; import java.util.*; import java.io.*; import javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection; import com.google.gson.Gson; import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder; import com.google.gson.JsonObject; import com.google.gson.JsonParser;Create a new class. Add variables for the API endpoint, your subscription key, and search term. You can use the global endpoint in the following code, or use the custom subdomain endpoint displayed in the Azure portal for your resource.
public static SearchResults SearchNews (String searchQuery) throws Exception { static String subscriptionKey = "enter key here"; static String host = "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com"; static String path = "/bing/v7.0/news/search"; static String searchTerm = "Microsoft"; //... }
Construct the search request, and receive a JSON response
Use the variables from the previous step to format a search URL for the API request. URL-encode your search term before you append it to the request.
public static SearchResults SearchNews (String searchQuery) throws Exception { // construct the search request URL (in the form of URL + query string) URL url = new URL(host + path + "?q=" + URLEncoder.encode(searchQuery, "UTF-8")); HttpsURLConnection connection = (HttpsURLConnection)url.openConnection(); connection.setRequestProperty("Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key", subscriptionKey); }Receive the JSON response from the Bing News Search API and construct the result object.
// receive JSON body InputStream stream = connection.getInputStream(); String response = new Scanner(stream).useDelimiter("\\A").next(); // construct result object for return SearchResults results = new SearchResults(new HashMap<String, String>(), response);
Process the JSON response
Separate the Bing-related HTTP headers from the JSON body, then close the stream and return the API response.
// extract Bing-related HTTP headers Map<String, List<String>> headers = connection.getHeaderFields(); for (String header : headers.keySet()) { if (header == null) continue; // may have null key if (header.startsWith("BingAPIs-") || header.startsWith("X-MSEdge-")) { results.relevantHeaders.put(header, headers.get(header).get(0)); } } stream.close(); return results;Create a method to parse and reserialize the JSON results.
// pretty-printer for JSON; uses GSON parser to parse and re-serialize public static String prettify(String json_text) { JsonParser parser = new JsonParser(); JsonObject json = parser.parse(json_text).getAsJsonObject(); Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setPrettyPrinting().create(); return gson.toJson(json); }In the main method of your application, call the search method and display the results.
public static void main (String[] args) { System.out.println("Searching the Web for: " + searchTerm); SearchResults result = SearchNews(searchTerm); System.out.println("\nRelevant HTTP Headers:\n"); for (String header : result.relevantHeaders.keySet()) System.out.println(header + ": " + result.relevantHeaders.get(header)); System.out.println("\nJSON Response:\n"); System.out.println(prettify(result.jsonResponse)); }
Example JSON response
A successful response is returned in JSON, as shown in the following example:
{
"_type": "News",
"readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/news\/search?q=Microsoft",
"totalEstimatedMatches": 36,
"sort": [
{
"name": "Best match",
"id": "relevance",
"isSelected": true,
"url": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/news\/search?q=Microsoft"
},
{
"name": "Most recent",
"id": "date",
"isSelected": false,
"url": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/news\/search?q=Microsoft&sortby=date"
}
],
"value": [
{
"name": "Microsoft to open flagship London brick-and-mortar retail store",
"url": "http:\/\/www.contoso.com\/article\/microsoft-to-open-flagshi...",
"image": {
"thumbnail": {
"contentUrl": "https:\/\/www.bing.com\/th?id=ON.F9E4A49EC010417...",
"width": 220,
"height": 146
}
},
"description": "After years of rumors about Microsoft opening a brick-and-mortar...",
"about": [
{
"readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entiti...",
"name": "Microsoft"
},
{
"readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entit...",
"name": "London"
}
],
"provider": [
{
"_type": "Organization",
"name": "Contoso"
}
],
"datePublished": "2017-09-21T21:16:00.0000000Z",
"category": "ScienceAndTechnology"
},
. . .
{
"name": "Microsoft adds Availability Zones to its Azure cloud platform",
"url": "https:\/\/contoso.com\/2017\/09\/21\/microsoft-adds-availability...",
"image": {
"thumbnail": {
"contentUrl": "https:\/\/www.bing.com\/th?id=ON.0AE7595B9720...",
"width": 700,
"height": 466
}
},
"description": "Microsoft has begun adding Availability Zones to its...",
"about": [
{
"readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entities\/a093e9b...",
"name": "Microsoft"
},
{
"readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entities\/cf3abf7d-e379-...",
"name": "Windows Azure"
},
{
"readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entities\/9cdd061c-1fae-d0...",
"name": "Cloud"
}
],
"provider": [
{
"_type": "Organization",
"name": "Contoso"
}
],
"datePublished": "2017-09-21T09:01:00.0000000Z",
"category": "ScienceAndTechnology"
}
]
}