Quickstart: Search the web using the Bing Web Search REST API and Node.js

Articolo
02/16/2022

Use this quickstart to make your first call to the Bing Web Search API. This Node.js application sends a search request to the API, and shows the JSON response. Although this application is written in JavaScript, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages.

Prerequisites

Here are a few things that you'll need before running this quickstart:

Node.js 6 or later
A subscription key

Create a project and declare required modules

Create a new Node.js project in your favorite IDE or editor. Then, copy the following code snippet to your project in a file named search.js:

// Use this simple app to query the Bing Web Search API and get a JSON response.
// Usage: node search.js "your query".
const https = require('https')

Set the subscription key

This code snippet uses the AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY environment variable to store your subscription key. Using an environment variable in this way is a good practice to prevent the accidental exposure of your keys when deploying code.

If you're unfamiliar with the use of environment variables, or you want to run this app as fast as possible, replace process.env['AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY'] with your subscription key set as a string.

const SUBSCRIPTION_KEY = process.env['AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY']
if (!SUBSCRIPTION_KEY) {
  throw new Error('AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY is not set.')
}

Create a function to make the request

This function makes a secure GET request and saves the search query as a query parameter in the path.

Use encodeURIComponent to escape invalid characters. The subscription key is passed in a header.
The callback receives a response that subscribes to the data event to aggregate the JSON body, the error event to log any issues, and the end event to know when the message should be considered complete.
When the app is complete, it prints the relevant headers and message body. You can adjust the colors and set the depth to suit your preference. A depth of 1 gives a nice summary of the response.

function bingWebSearch(query) {
  https.get({
    hostname: 'api.bing.microsoft.com',
    path:     '/v7.0/search?q=' + encodeURIComponent(query),
    headers:  { 'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key': SUBSCRIPTION_KEY },
  }, res => {
    let body = ''
    res.on('data', part => body += part)
    res.on('end', () => {
      for (var header in res.headers) {
        if (header.startsWith("bingapis-") || header.startsWith("x-msedge-")) {
          console.log(header + ": " + res.headers[header])
        }
      }
      console.log('\nJSON Response:\n')
      console.dir(JSON.parse(body), { colors: false, depth: null })
    })
    res.on('error', e => {
      console.log('Error: ' + e.message)
      throw e
    })
  })
}

Get the query

Let's look at the program's arguments to find the query. The first argument is the path to the node, the second is our filename, and the third is your query. If the query is absent, a default query of "Microsoft Cognitive Services" is used.

const query = process.argv[2] || 'Microsoft Bing Search Services'

Make a request and print the response

Now that everything is defined, let's call our function.

bingWebSearch(query)

Put it all together

The last step is to run your code with the command: node search.js "<your query>".

If you'd like to compare your code with ours, here's the complete program:

const https = require('https')
const SUBSCRIPTION_KEY = process.env['AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY']
if (!SUBSCRIPTION_KEY) {
  throw new Error('Missing the AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY environment variable')
}
function bingWebSearch(query) {
  https.get({
    hostname: 'api.bing.microsoft.com',
    path:     '/v7.0/search?q=' + encodeURIComponent(query),
    headers:  { 'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key': SUBSCRIPTION_KEY },
  }, res => {
    let body = ''
    res.on('data', part => body += part)
    res.on('end', () => {
      for (var header in res.headers) {
        if (header.startsWith("bingapis-") || header.startsWith("x-msedge-")) {
          console.log(header + ": " + res.headers[header])
        }
      }
      console.log('\nJSON Response:\n')
      console.dir(JSON.parse(body), { colors: false, depth: null })
    })
    res.on('error', e => {
      console.log('Error: ' + e.message)
      throw e
    })
  })
}
const query = process.argv[2] || 'Microsoft Bing Search Services'
bingWebSearch(query)

Example JSON response

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

{
  "_type": "SearchResponse",
  "queryContext": {
    "originalQuery": "Microsoft Cognitive Services"
  },
  "webPages": {
    "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=Microsoft+cognitive+services",
    "totalEstimatedMatches": 22300000,
    "value": [
      {
        "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#WebPages.0",
        "name": "Microsoft Cognitive Services",
        "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services",
        "displayUrl": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services",
        "snippet": "Knock down barriers between you and your ideas. Enable natural and contextual interaction with tools that augment users' experiences via the power of machine-based AI. Plug them in and bring your ideas to life.",
        "deepLinks": [
          {
            "name": "Face",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/face/",
            "snippet": "Add facial recognition to your applications to detect, identify, and verify faces using a Face service from Microsoft Azure. ... Cognitive Services; Face service;"
          },
          {
            "name": "Text Analytics",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/text-analytics/",
            "snippet": "Cognitive Services; Text Analytics API; Text Analytics API . Detect sentiment, ... you agree that Microsoft may store it and use it to improve Microsoft services, ..."
          },
          {
            "name": "Computer Vision API",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/computer-vision/",
            "snippet": "Extract the data you need from images using optical character recognition and image analytics with Computer Vision APIs from Microsoft Azure."
          },
          {
            "name": "Emotion",
            "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/emotion-api",
            "snippet": "Cognitive Services Emotion API - microsoft.com"
          },
          {
            "name": "Bing Speech API",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/speech/",
            "snippet": "Add speech recognition to your applications, including text to speech, with a speech API from Microsoft Azure. ... Cognitive Services; Bing Speech API;"
          },
          {
            "name": "Get Started for Free",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/",
            "snippet": "Add vision, speech, language, and knowledge capabilities to your applications using intelligence APIs and SDKs from Cognitive Services."
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
  "relatedSearches": {
    "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#RelatedSearches",
    "value": [
      {
        "text": "microsoft bot framework",
        "displayText": "microsoft bot framework",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+bot+framework"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services youtube",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services youtube",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+youtube"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services search api",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services search api",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+search+api"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services news",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services news",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+news"
      },
      {
        "text": "ms cognitive service",
        "displayText": "ms cognitive service",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=ms+cognitive+service"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services text analytics",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services text analytics",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+text+analytics"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services toolkit",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services toolkit",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+toolkit"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services api",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services api",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+api"
      }
    ]
  },
  "rankingResponse": {
    "mainline": {
      "items": [
        {
          "answerType": "WebPages",
          "resultIndex": 0,
          "value": {
            "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#WebPages.0"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    "sidebar": {
      "items": [
        {
          "answerType": "RelatedSearches",
          "value": {
            "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#RelatedSearches"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Next steps

Bing Web Search API single-page app tutorial