Quickstart: Suggest search queries with the Bing Autosuggest REST API and Ruby

Article
05/06/2020

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.

Follow this quickstart to learn how to make calls to the Bing Autosuggest API and read the JSON response. This simple Ruby application sends a partial search query to the API, and returns suggestions for searches. While 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 an Azure resource

Start using the Bing Autosuggest API by creating one of the following Azure resources.

Bing Autosuggest resource

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.
Bing Autosuggest is also offered in paid tiers of the Bing Search v7 resource.

Multi-service resource

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 a new application

Create a new Ruby file in your favorite IDE or editor. Add the following requirements:
```
require 'net/https'
require 'uri'
require 'json'
```
Create variables for your API host and path, market code, and partial search query. Use the global endpoint in the following code, or use the custom subdomain endpoint displayed in the Azure portal for your resource.
```
subscriptionKey = 'enter your key here'
host = 'https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com'
path = '/bing/v7.0/Suggestions'
mkt = 'en-US'
query = 'sail'
```
Create a parameters string by appending your market code to the mkt= parameter, and appending your query to the q= parameter. Then, construct your request URI by combining the API host, path, and the parameters string.
```
params = '?mkt=' + mkt + '&q=' + query
uri = URI (host + path + params)
```

Create and send an API request

Create a request with your URI, and 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 store the response.

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

Print the JSON response.

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

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