Bing Web Search in C#

This blog post contains a C# wrapper of the Bing API (Microsoft’s internet search engine). In my previous post I presented a similar wrapper for Google’s Custom Search API, successor to the Web Search API.  I was frankly less than impressed with Google custom search API as it appears to be engineered to favor specific themes and/or domains.

To use use this code below you must first create a Live ID and request an App ID.  This page provided more details.

How to use:

If you have a .NET 4.0 WPF application, like this:

<Window x:Class="WpfApplication6.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
    <Grid>
        <DataGrid x:Name="myDataGrid" />
    </Grid>
</Window>

Then all you need to do to populate the window with internet search results about Albert Einstein is to called the asynchronous search method on BingSearch .

public partial class MainWindow : Window {
    public MainWindow() {
        InitializeComponent();
 
        this.Loaded += (s, e) => {
            BingSearch search = new BingSearch() {
                AppId = "<Your App ID>"
            };
            search.SearchCompleted += (a, b) => {
                this.myDataGrid.ItemsSource = b.Response.Web.Results;
            };
            search.SearchAsync("Albert Einstein");                
        };
    }
}

Below is the source code to BingSearch, a class that provides both a synchronous and an asynchronous method to search the internet using Bing.

public class BingSearch {
    public BingSearch() {
        this.Count = 50;
        this.Offset = 0;
        this.Sources = "Web";
        this.Adult = BingSafeLevel.Moderate;
        this.Options = "DisableLocationDetection";
        this.WebOptions = "DisableHostCollapsing+DisableQueryAlterations";
    }
    //
    // PROPERTIES
    //
    public string AppId { get; set; }
    public string Sources { get; set; }
    public int Count { get; set; }
    public int Offset { get; set; }
    public BingSafeLevel Adult { get; set; }
    public string Options { get; set; }
    public string WebOptions { get; set; }
    //
    // EVENTS
    //
    public event EventHandler<BingSearchEventArgs> SearchCompleted;
    //
    // METHODs
    //
    protected void OnSearchCompleted(BingSearchEventArgs e) {
        if (this.SearchCompleted != null) {
            this.SearchCompleted(this, e);
        }
    }
    public BingSearchResponse Search(string search) {
        //
        UriBuilder builder = this.BuilderQuery(search);
 
        // Submit Request
        WebClient w = new WebClient();
        string result = w.DownloadString(builder.Uri);
        if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(result)) { return null; }
 
        // Desearealize from JSON to .NET objects
        Byte[] bytes = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(result);
        MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream(bytes);
        DataContractJsonSerializer dataContractJsonSerializer =
            new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(BingWebResponse));
        BingWebResponse bingWebResponse =
            dataContractJsonSerializer.ReadObject(memoryStream) as BingWebResponse;
        memoryStream.Close();
 
        return bingWebResponse.SearchResponse;
    }
    public void SearchAsync(string search) {
        // Get URL
        UriBuilder builder = this.BuilderQuery(search);
 
        // Submit Request
        WebClient w = new WebClient();
        w.DownloadStringCompleted += (a, b) => {
            // Check for errors
            if (b == null) { return; }
            if (b.Error != null) { return; }
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(b.Result)) { return; }
 
            // Desearealize from JSON to .NET objects
            Byte[] bytes = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(b.Result);
            MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream(bytes);
            DataContractJsonSerializer dataContractJsonSerializer =
                new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(BingWebResponse));
            BingWebResponse bingWebResponse =
                dataContractJsonSerializer.ReadObject(memoryStream) as BingWebResponse;
            memoryStream.Close();
 
            // Raise Event
            this.OnSearchCompleted(
                new BingSearchEventArgs() {
                    Response = bingWebResponse.SearchResponse
                }
            );
        };
        w.DownloadStringAsync(builder.Uri);
    }
    private UriBuilder BuilderQuery(string search) {
        // Build Query
        string query = string.Empty;
        query += string.Format("AppId={0}", this.AppId);
        query += string.Format("&Query={0}", search);
        query += string.Format("&Sources={0}", this.Sources);
        query += string.Format("&Adult={0}", this.Adult);
        query += string.Format("&Options={0}", this.Options);
        query += string.Format("&Web.Count={0}", this.Count);
        query += string.Format("&Web.Offset={0}", this.Offset);
        query += string.Format("&Web.Options={0}", this.WebOptions);
        query += string.Format("&JsonType={0}", "raw");
 
        // Construct URL
        UriBuilder builder = new UriBuilder() {
            Scheme = Uri.UriSchemeHttp,
            Host = "api.bing.net",
            Path = "json.aspx",
            Query = query
        };
 
        // Return URL
        return builder;
    }
}
 
public enum BingSafeLevel {
    Off, Moderate, Strict
}
 
public class BingSearchEventArgs : EventArgs {
    public BingSearchResponse Response { get; set; }
}
 
[DataContract]
public class BingWebResponse {
    [DataMember(Name = "SearchResponse")]
    public BingSearchResponse SearchResponse { get; set; }
}
 
[DataContract]
public class BingSearchResponse {
    [DataMember(Name = "Version")]
    public string Version { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "Query")]
    public BingQuery Query { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "Web")]
    public BingWeb Web { get; set; }
}
 
[DataContract]
public class BingQuery {
    [DataMember(Name = "SearchTerms")]
    public string SearchTerms { get; set; }
}
 
[DataContract]
public class BingWeb {
    [DataMember(Name = "Total")]
    public int Total { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "Offset")]
    public int Offset { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "Results")]
    public List<BingResult> Results { get; set; }
}
 
[DataContract]
public class BingResult {
    [DataMember(Name = "Title")]
    public string Title { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "Description")]
    public string Description { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "Url")]
    public string Url { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "DisplayUrl")]
    public string DisplayUrl { get; set; }
    [DataMember(Name = "DateTime")]
    public string DateTimeOriginal { get; set; }
    // Convert Date
    public DateTime? DateTimeConverted {
        get {
            if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(this.DateTimeOriginal)) { return null; }
            DateTime d;
            if (!DateTime.TryParse(this.DateTimeOriginal, out d)) { return null; }
            return d;
        }
    }
}