Quickstart: Perform a news search using Ruby and Bing News Search REST API

Use this quickstart to make your first call to Bing News Search API. This simple Ruby application sends a search query to the API and processes the JSON response.

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

The source code for this sample is available on GitHub.

Prerequisites

• Ruby 2.4 or later

Create and initialize the application

1. Import the following packages into your code file:

   require 'net/https'
   require 'uri'
   require 'json'
   

2. Create variables for the API endpoint, news search URL, your subscription key, and search term.

   accessKey = "enter key here"
   uri  = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com"
   path = "/v7.0/news/search"
   term = "Microsoft"
   

Format and make an API request

Use the variables from the previous step to format a search URL for the API request. Then, send the request.

uri = URI(uri + path + "?q=" + URI.escape(term))
request = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
request['Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key'] = accessKey
response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https') do |http|
   http.request(request)
end

Process and print the JSON response

After the response is received, parse the JSON, and then print both the response body and its headers.

puts "\nRelevant Headers:\n\n"
response.each_header do |key, value|
   # header names are coerced to lowercase
   if key.start_with?("bingapis-") or key.start_with?("x-msedge-") then
      puts key + ": " + value
   end
end
puts "\nJSON Response:\n\n"
puts JSON::pretty_generate(JSON(response.body))

Example JSON response

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

{
   "_type": "News",
   "readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/news\/search?q=Microsoft",
   "totalEstimatedMatches": 36,
   "sort": [
      {
         "name": "Best match",
         "id": "relevance",
         "isSelected": true,
         "url": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/news\/search?q=Microsoft"
      },
      {
         "name": "Most recent",
         "id": "date",
         "isSelected": false,
         "url": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/news\/search?q=Microsoft&sortby=date"
      }
   ],
   "value": [
      {
         "name": "Microsoft to open flagship London brick-and-mortar retail store",
         "url": "http:\/\/www.contoso.com\/article\/microsoft-to-open-flagshi...",
         "image": {
            "thumbnail": {
               "contentUrl": "https:\/\/www.bing.com\/th?id=ON.F9E4A49EC010417...",
               "width": 220,
               "height": 146
            }
         },
         "description": "After years of rumors about Microsoft opening a brick-and-mortar...", 
         "about": [
           {
             "readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entiti...", 
             "name": "Microsoft"
           }, 
           {
             "readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entit...", 
             "name": "London"
           }
         ], 
         "provider": [
           {
             "_type": "Organization", 
             "name": "Contoso"
           }
         ], 
          "datePublished": "2017-09-21T21:16:00.0000000Z", 
          "category": "ScienceAndTechnology"
      }, 

      . . .
      
      {
         "name": "Microsoft adds Availability Zones to its Azure cloud platform",
         "url": "https:\/\/contoso.com\/2017\/09\/21\/microsoft-adds-availability...",
         "image": {
            "thumbnail": {
               "contentUrl": "https:\/\/www.bing.com\/th?id=ON.0AE7595B9720...",
               "width": 700,
               "height": 466
            }
         },
         "description": "Microsoft has begun adding Availability Zones to its...",
         "about": [
            {
               "readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entities\/a093e9b...",
               "name": "Microsoft"
            },
            {
               "readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entities\/cf3abf7d-e379-...",
               "name": "Windows Azure"
            },
            {
               "readLink": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/entities\/9cdd061c-1fae-d0...",
               "name": "Cloud"
            }
         ],
         "provider": [
            {
               "_type": "Organization",
               "name": "Contoso"
            }
         ],
         "datePublished": "2017-09-21T09:01:00.0000000Z",
         "category": "ScienceAndTechnology"
      }
   ]
}

Next steps