Quickstart: Suggest search strings with Bing Autosuggest REST API and Node.js

Article
02/16/2022

Follow this quickstart to learn how to make calls to Bing Autosuggest API and read the JSON response. This simple Node.js application sends a partial search query to the API, and returns suggestions for searches. While this application is written in JavaScript, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages. The source code for this sample is available on GitHub.

Prerequisites

Node.js 6 or later

Create a new application

Create a new JavaScript file in your favorite IDE or editor, and set the strictness and https requirements.
```
'use strict';

let https = require ('https');
```

Create variables for the API endpoint host and path, your subscription key, market code, and a search term.

// Replace the subscriptionKey string value with your valid subscription key.
let subscriptionKey = 'enter key here';

let host = 'api.bing.microsoft.com';
let path = '/v7.0/Suggestions';

let mkt = 'en-US';
let query = 'sail';

Construct the search request and query.

Create a parameters string for your query by appending the market code to the mkt= parameter, and your query to the q= parameter.
```
let params = '?mkt=' + mkt + '&q=' + query;
```

Create a function called get_suggestions(). Use the variables from the last steps to format a search URL for the API request. Your search term must be URL-encoded before being sent to the API.

let get_suggestions = function () {
  let request_params = {
    method : 'GET',
    hostname : host,
    path : path + params,
    headers : {
      'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key' : subscriptionKey,
    }
  };
//...
}

In the same function, use the request library to send your query to the API. The response_handler is defined in the next section.
```
    //...
    let req = https.request(request_params, response_handler);
    req.end();
    ```
```

Create a search handler

Define a function named response_handler that takes an HTTP call, response, as a parameter. Do the following steps within this function:

Define a variable to contain the body of the JSON response.

let response_handler = function (response) {
    let body = '';
};

Store the body of the response when the data flag is called.
```
response.on ('data', function (d) {
body += d;
});
```

When an end flag is signaled, use JSON.parse() and JSON.stringify() to print the response.

response.on ('end', function () {
let body_ = JSON.parse (body);
let body__ = JSON.stringify (body_, null, '  ');
    console.log (body__);
});
response.on ('error', function (e) {
    console.log ('Error: ' + e.message);
});

Call get_suggestions() to send the request to the Bing Autosuggest API.

Example JSON response

A successful response is returned in JSON, as shown in the following example:

{
  "_type": "Suggestions",
  "queryContext": {
    "originalQuery": "sail"
  },
  "suggestionGroups": [
    {
      "name": "Web",
      "searchSuggestions": [
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003dgvtP9TS9NwhajSapY2Se6y1eCbP2fq_GiP2n-cxi6OY\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailrite%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5003.1",
          "displayText": "sailrite",
          "query": "sailrite",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003dBTS0G6AakxntIl9rmbDXtk1n6rQpsZZ99aQ7ClE7dTY\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsail%2bsand%2bpoint%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5004.1",
          "displayText": "sail sand point",
          "query": "sail sand point",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003dc0QOA_j6swCZJy9FxqOwke2KslJE7ZRmMooGClAuCpY\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailboats%2bfor%2bsale%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5005.1",
          "displayText": "sailboats for sale",
          "query": "sailboats for sale",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003dmnMdREUH20SepmHQH1zlh9Hy_w7jpOlZFm3KG2R_BoA\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailing%2banarchy%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5006.1",
          "displayText": "sailing anarchy",
          "query": "sailing anarchy",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003dWLFO-B1GG5qtBGnoU1Bizz02YKkg5fgAQtHwhXn4z8I\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailpoint%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5007.1",
          "displayText": "sailpoint",
          "query": "sailpoint",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003dquBMwmKlGwqC5wAU0K7n416plhWcR8zQCi7r-Fw9Y0w\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailflow%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5008.1",
          "displayText": "sailflow",
          "query": "sailflow",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003d0udadFl0gCTKCp0QmzQTXS3_y08iO8FpwsoKPHPS6kw\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailboatdata%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5009.1",
          "displayText": "sailboatdata",
          "query": "sailboatdata",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        },
        {
          "url": "https://www.bing.com/cr?IG\u003d2ACC4FE8B02F4AACB9182A6502B0E556\u0026CID\u003d1D546424A4CB64AF2D386F26A5CD6583\u0026rd\u003d1\u0026h\u003deSSt0MRSbl2V0RFPSuVd-gC7fGOT4717pz55EBUgPec\u0026v\u003d1\u0026r\u003dhttps%3a%2f%2fwww.bing.com%2fsearch%3fq%3dsailor%2b2025%26FORM%3dUSBAPI\u0026p\u003dDevEx,5010.1",
          "displayText": "sailor 2025",
          "query": "sailor 2025",
          "searchKind": "WebSearch"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Next steps

Create a single-page web app

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