Quickstart: Search for images with Bing Image Search API and Java

Article
02/16/2022

Use this quickstart to learn how to send search requests to Bing Image Search API in Azure Cognitive Services. This Java application sends a search query to the API, and displays the URL of the first image in the results. 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 with additional error handling and annotations.

Prerequisites

The Java Development Kit (JDK)
The Gson library

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 variables for the API endpoint, your subscription key, and search term.

static String subscriptionKey = "enter key here";
static String host = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com";
static String path = "/v7.0/images/search";
static String searchTerm = "tropical ocean";

Construct the search request and query

Use the variables from the previous step to format a search URL for the API request. URL-encode the search term before you appended it to the request.

// construct the search request URL (in the form of endpoint + 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 and process the JSON response

Receive the JSON response from the Bing Image 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);

Separate the Bing-related HTTP headers from the JSON body.

// 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));
    }
}

Close the stream, and parse the response. Get the total number of returned search results and the thumbnail url to the first image result.

stream.close();
JsonParser parser = new JsonParser();
JsonObject json = parser.parse(result.jsonResponse).getAsJsonObject();
//get the first image result from the JSON object, along with the total
//number of images returned by the Bing Image Search API.
String total = json.get("totalEstimatedMatches").getAsString();
JsonArray results = json.getAsJsonArray("value");
JsonObject first_result = (JsonObject)results.get(0);
String resultURL = first_result.get("thumbnailUrl").getAsString();

Example JSON response

Responses from the Bing Image Search API are returned as JSON. This sample response has been truncated to show a single result.

{
"_type":"Images",
"instrumentation":{
    "_type":"ResponseInstrumentation"
},
"readLink":"images\/search?q=tropical ocean",
"webSearchUrl":"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?q=tropical ocean&FORM=OIIARP",
"totalEstimatedMatches":842,
"nextOffset":47,
"value":[
    {
        "webSearchUrl":"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?view=detailv2&FORM=OIIRPO&q=tropical+ocean&id=8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5&simid=608027248313960152",
        "name":"My Life in the Ocean | The greatest WordPress.com site in ...",
        "thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/tse3.mm.bing.net\/th?id=OIP.fmwSKKmKpmZtJiBDps1kLAHaEo&pid=Api",
        "datePublished":"2017-11-03T08:51:00.0000000Z",
        "contentUrl":"https:\/\/mylifeintheocean.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/tropical-ocean-wallpaper-1920x12003.jpg",
        "hostPageUrl":"https:\/\/mylifeintheocean.wordpress.com\/",
        "contentSize":"897388 B",
        "encodingFormat":"jpeg",
        "hostPageDisplayUrl":"https:\/\/mylifeintheocean.wordpress.com",
        "width":1920,
        "height":1200,
        "thumbnail":{
        "width":474,
        "height":296
        },
        "imageInsightsToken":"ccid_fmwSKKmK*mid_8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5*simid_608027248313960152*thid_OIP.fmwSKKmKpmZtJiBDps1kLAHaEo",
        "insightsMetadata":{
        "recipeSourcesCount":0,
        "bestRepresentativeQuery":{
            "text":"Tropical Beaches Desktop Wallpaper",
            "displayText":"Tropical Beaches Desktop Wallpaper",
            "webSearchUrl":"https:\/\/www.bing.com\/images\/search?q=Tropical+Beaches+Desktop+Wallpaper&id=8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5&FORM=IDBQDM"
        },
        "pagesIncludingCount":115,
        "availableSizesCount":44
        },
        "imageId":"8607ACDACB243BDEA7E1EF78127DA931E680E3A5",
        "accentColor":"0050B2"
    }]
}

Next steps

Bing Image Search single-page app tutorial

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