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

Article
10/28/2020

Use this quickstart to make your first call to Bing Entity Search API and view the JSON response. This simple Ruby application sends a news search query to the API, and displays the response. The source code for this application is available on GitHub.

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

Prerequisites

Ruby 2.4 or later.

Create and initialize the application

In your favorite IDE or code editor, create a news Ruby file and import the following packages:
```
require 'net/https'
require 'cgi'
require 'json'
```

Create variables for your API endpoint, News search URL, your subscription key, and search query.

host = 'https://api.bing.microsoft.com'
path = '/v7.0/entities'

mkt = 'en-US'
query = 'italian restaurants near me'

Format and make an API request

Create the parameters string for your request by appending your market variable to the ?mkt= parameter. Encode your query and append it to the &q= parameter. Combine your API host, path, and the parameters for your request, and cast them as a URI object.
```
params = '?mkt=' + mkt + '&q=' + CGI.escape(query)
uri = URI (host + path + params)
```
Use the variables from the last step to create the request. Add your subscription key to the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header.
```
request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
request['Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key'] = subscriptionKey
```

Send the request, and print the response.

response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
    http.request (request)
end

puts JSON::pretty_generate (JSON (response.body))

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

Build a single-page web app

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