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

  • Article

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.

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

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

Prerequisites

Create an Azure resource

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

Bing Entity Search 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 Entity Search 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.

Search entities

To run this application, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new PHP project in your favorite IDE.
  2. Add the code provided below.
  3. Replace the key value with an access key valid for your subscription.
  4. You can use the global endpoint in the following code, or use the custom subdomain endpoint displayed in the Azure portal for your resource.
  5. Run the program.
<?php

// NOTE: Be sure to uncomment the following line in your php.ini file.
// ;extension=php_openssl.dll

// **********************************************
// *** Update or verify the following values. ***
// **********************************************

// Replace the subscriptionKey string value with your valid subscription key.
$subscriptionKey = 'ENTER KEY HERE';

$host = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com";
$path = "/v7.0/search";

$mkt = "en-US";
$query = "italian restaurants near me";

function search ($host, $path, $key, $mkt, $query) {

	$params = '?mkt=' . $mkt . '&q=' . urlencode ($query);

	$headers = "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $key\r\n";

	// NOTE: Use the key 'http' even if you are making an HTTPS request. See:
	// https://php.net/manual/en/function.stream-context-create.php
	$options = array (
		'http' => array (
			'header' => $headers,
			'method' => 'GET'
		)
	);
	$context  = stream_context_create ($options);
	$result = file_get_contents ($host . $path . $params, false, $context);
	return $result;
}

$result = search ($host, $path, $subscriptionKey, $mkt, $query);

echo json_encode (json_decode ($result), JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
?>

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