Quickstart: Send a search request to Bing Entity Search REST API using Java

Article
10/28/2020

Use this quickstart to make your first call to Bing Entity Search API and view the JSON response. This simple Java application sends a news search query to the API, and displays the response.

Although this application is written in Java, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages.

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.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.util.*;
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;
import com.google.gson.Gson;
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder;
import com.google.gson.JsonObject;
import com.google.gson.JsonParser;

In a new class, create variables for the API endpoint, your subscription key, and a search query.

public class EntitySearch {

   static String subscriptionKey = "ENTER KEY HERE";

 	static String host = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com";
 	static String path = "/v7.0/entities";

 	static String mkt = "en-US";
 	static String query = "italian restaurant near me";
//...

Construct a search request string

Create a function called search() that returns a JSON String. url-encode your search query, and add it to a parameters string with &q=. Add your market to the parameter string with ?mkt=.

Create a URL object with your host, path, and parameters strings.

//...
public static String search () throws Exception {
    String encoded_query = URLEncoder.encode (query, "UTF-8");
    String params = "?mkt=" + mkt + "&q=" + encoded_query;
    URL url = new URL (host + path + params);
//...

Send a search request and receive a response

In the search() function created above, create a new HttpsURLConnection object with url.openCOnnection(). Set the request method to GET, and add your subscription key to the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header.

//...
HttpsURLConnection connection = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();
connection.setRequestMethod("GET");
connection.setRequestProperty("Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key", subscriptionKey);
connection.setDoOutput(true);
//...

Create a new StringBuilder. Use a new InputStreamReader as a parameter when instantiating BufferedReader to read the API response.

//...
StringBuilder response = new StringBuilder ();
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
    new InputStreamReader(connection.getInputStream()));
//...

Create a String object to store the response from the BufferedReader. Iterate through it, and append each line to the string. Then, close the reader and return the response.
```
String line;

while ((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
  response.append(line);
}
in.close();

return response.toString();
```

Format the JSON response

Create a new function called prettify to format the JSON response. Create a new JsonParser, call parse() on the JSON text, and then store it as a JSON object.

Use the Gson library to create a new GsonBuilder(), use setPrettyPrinting().create() to format the JSON, and then return it.

//...
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);
}
//...

Call the search function

From the main method of your project, call search(), and use prettify() to format the text.

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		try {
			String response = search ();
			System.out.println (prettify (response));
		}
		catch (Exception e) {
			System.out.println (e);
		}
	}

Example JSON response

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

{
  "_type": "SearchResponse",
  "queryContext": {
    "originalQuery": "italian restaurant near me",
    "askUserForLocation": true
  },
  "places": {
    "value": [
      {
        "_type": "LocalBusiness",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=sinful+bakery&filters=local...",
        "name": "Liberty's Delightful Sinful Bakery & Cafe",
        "url": "https://www.contoso.com/",
        "entityPresentationInfo": {
          "entityScenario": "ListItem",
          "entityTypeHints": [
            "Place",
            "LocalBusiness"
          ]
        },
        "address": {
          "addressLocality": "Seattle",
          "addressRegion": "WA",
          "postalCode": "98112",
          "addressCountry": "US",
          "neighborhood": "Madison Park"
        },
        "telephone": "(800) 555-1212"
      },

      . . .
      {
        "_type": "Restaurant",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=Pickles+and+Preserves...",
        "name": "Munson's Pickles and Preserves Farm",
        "url": "https://www.princi.com/",
        "entityPresentationInfo": {
          "entityScenario": "ListItem",
          "entityTypeHints": [
            "Place",
            "LocalBusiness",
            "Restaurant"
          ]
        },
        "address": {
          "addressLocality": "Seattle",
          "addressRegion": "WA",
          "postalCode": "98101",
          "addressCountry": "US",
          "neighborhood": "Capitol Hill"
        },
        "telephone": "(800) 555-1212"
      },
      
      . . .
    ]
  }
}

Next steps

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