Web Service REST Calls
REST Web Services APIs
There are several ways to make Yahoo! Web Services REST requests using Java.
HTTP GET Requests
An HTTP GET request is all you need to retrieve basic search results from the Yahoo! Search Web Service. GET requests are easy to debug because you can paste it in your web browser and quickly see if the query has been constructed properly. Some web services require requests via POST for tasks such as image uploading or the modification of HTTP headers to set cookies. We will cover both GET and POST requests in the following examples.
The first example is a request for the keyword “umbrella” that returns 10 results:
String request = "http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch? appid=YahooDemo&query=umbrella&results=10";
We make a simple HTTP GET request to retrieve the results:
HttpClient client = new HttpClient(); GetMethod method = new GetMethod(request); // Send GET request int statusCode = client.executeMethod(method);
Next, we process the response from Yahoo! Web Services and print the XML response to the console:
InputStream rstream = null; rstream = method.getResponseBodyAsStream(); BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(rstream)); String line; while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) System.out.println(line); } br.close();
A complete code example is shown below in the YahooWebServiceGet.java
import java.io.*;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.*;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.*;
public class YahooWebServiceGet {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
String request = "http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch?appid=YahooDemo&
query=umbrella&results=10";
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
GetMethod method = new GetMethod(request);
// Send GET request
int statusCode = client.executeMethod(method);
if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
System.err.println("Method failed: " + method.getStatusLine());
}
InputStream rstream = null;
// Get the response body
rstream = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();
// Process the response from Yahoo! Web Services
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(rstream));
String line;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
br.close();
}
}
HTTP POST Requests
POST requests are used by web browsers when submitting data from HTML forms. The content type “multipart/form-data” should be used for submitting forms that contain files, non-ASCII data, and binary data.
For POST requests, we construct the POST data separately from the request URL and parameters.
POST requests are used by web browsers when submitting data from HTML forms. The content type “multipart/form-data” should be used for submitting forms that contain files, non-ASCII data, and binary data.
For POST requests, we construct the POST data separately from the request URL and parameters.
String request = "http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch";
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
PostMethod method = new PostMethod(request);
// Add POST parameters
method.addParameter("appid","YahooDemo");
method.addParameter("query","umbrella");
method.addParameter("results","10");
// Send POST request
int statusCode = client.executeMethod(method);
InputStream rstream = null;
// Get the response body
rstream = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();
The response is the same as the first example and can be processed in the same way.
A complete code example is shown in YahooWebServicePost.java
A complete code example is shown in YahooWebServicePost.java
import java.io.*;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpClient;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.HttpStatus;
import org.apache.commons.httpclient.methods.PostMethod;
public class YahooWebServicePost {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
String request = "http://api.search.yahoo.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch";
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
PostMethod method = new PostMethod(request);
method.addParameter("appid","YahooDemo");
method.addParameter("query","umbrella");
method.addParameter("results","10");
// Send POST request
int statusCode = client.executeMethod(method);
if (statusCode != HttpStatus.SC_OK) {
System.err.println("Method failed: " + method.getStatusLine());
}
InputStream rstream = null;
// Get the response body
rstream = method.getResponseBodyAsStream();
// Process the response from Yahoo! Web Services
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(rstream));
String line;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
br.close();
}
}
POST Requests with Sockets
Here’s a POST example where we use sockets instead of the URL and URLConnection objects.
Here’s a POST example where we use sockets instead of the URL and URLConnection objects.
// Create POST data string
String postdata = "appid" + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("YahooDemo", "UTF-8");
postdata += "&" + "query" + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("umbrella", "UTF-8");
postdata += "&" + "results" + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("10", "UTF-8");
// Create a socket to the host
String hostname = "api.search.yahoo.com";
int port = 80;
InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getByName(hostname);
Socket socket = new Socket(addr, port);
// Send header
String path = "/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch";
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), "UTF8"));
bw.write("POST " + path + " HTTP/1.0\r\n");
bw.write("Content-Length: " + postdata.length() + "\r\n");
bw.write("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n");
bw.write("\r\n");
// Send POST data string
bw.write(postdata);
bw.flush();
A complete code example is shown in YahooWebServicePostSocket.java
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class YahooWebServicePostSocket {
public static void main(String[] args) {
try {
// Create POST data string
String postdata = "appid" + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("YahooDemo", "UTF-8");
postdata += "&" + "query" + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("umbrella", "UTF-8");
postdata += "&" + "results" + "=" + URLEncoder.encode("10", "UTF-8");
// Create a socket to the host
String hostname = "api.search.yahoo.com";
int port = 80;
InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getByName(hostname);
Socket socket = new Socket(addr, port);
// Send header
String path = "/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch";
BufferedWriter bw = new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), "UTF8"));
bw.write("POST " + path + " HTTP/1.0\r\n");
bw.write("Content-Length: " + postdata.length() + "\r\n");
bw.write("Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\n");
bw.write("\r\n");
// Send POST data string
bw.write(postdata);
bw.flush();
// Process the response from Yahoo! Web Services
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream()));
String line;
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println(line);
}
bw.close();
br.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Web services request failed");
System.err.println(e.getMessage());
e.printStackTrace(System.err);
}
}
}