BOSS PlaceSpotter API

node-placespotter.js

var request = require('request');
var qs = require('querystring');

var url = 'https://yboss.yahooapis.com/geo/placespotter';

var params = qs.stringify({
  documentContent: 'Yahoo is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA',
  documentType: 'text/plain',
  outputType: 'json'
});

var oauth = {
  consumer_key: 'Your Consumer Key',
  consumer_secret: 'Your Consumer Secret'
};

request.get({ url: url + '?' + params, oauth: oauth, json: true }, function(e, r, body) {
  console.log(body);
});

placespotter.cs

using System;
using System.Net;
using OAuth;

namespace ConsoleApplication1{
class Program{
static void Main(string[] args){
string consumerKey = "...";
string consumerSecret = "...";
var uri = new Uri("https://yboss.yahooapis.com/geo/placespotter?callback=json2&q=701+first+avenue+sunnnyvale");
string url, param;
var oAuth = new OAuthBase();
var nonce = oAuth.GenerateNonce();
var timeStamp = oAuth.GenerateTimeStamp();
var signature = oAuth.GenerateSignature(uri, consumerKey,
consumerSecret, string.Empty, string.Empty, "GET", timeStamp, nonce,
OAuthBase.SignatureTypes.HMACSHA1, out url, out param);

using (WebRequest.Create(string.Format("{0}?{1}&oauth_signature={2}",
url, param, signature)).GetResponse()) { }
}}}

placespotter.java

/** SignPostTest.java **/

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
import java.net.URLDecoder;
import java.net.URLEncoder;

import org.apache.log4j.BasicConfigurator;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

import oauth.signpost.OAuthConsumer;
import oauth.signpost.basic.DefaultOAuthConsumer;


/**
 * Sample code to use Yahoo! Search BOSS
 * 
 * Please include the following libraries 
 * 1. Apache Log4j
 * 2. oAuth Signpost
 * 
 * @author xyz
 */
public class SignPostTest {

    private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger(SignPostTest.class);

    protected static String yahooServer = "https://yboss.yahooapis.com/geo/";

    // Please provide your consumer key here
    private static String consumer_key = "";

    // Please provide your consumer secret here
    private static String consumer_secret = "";

    /** The HTTPS request object used for the connection */
    private static StHttpRequest httpsRequest = new StHttpRequest();

    /** Encode Format */
    private static final String ENCODE_FORMAT = "UTF-8";

    /** Call Type */
    private static final String callType = "placespotter";

    private static final int HTTP_STATUS_OK = 200;

    /**
    * 
    * @return
    */
    public int returnHttpData() 
    throws UnsupportedEncodingException, 
    Exception{

        if(this.isConsumerKeyExists() && this.isConsumerSecretExists()) {

            // Start with call Type
            String params = callType;

            // Add query
            params = params.concat("?q=");

            // Encode Query string before concatenating
            params = params.concat(URLEncoder.encode(this.getSearchString(), "UTF-8"));

            // Create final URL
            String url = yahooServer + params;

            // Create oAuth Consumer 
            OAuthConsumer consumer = new DefaultOAuthConsumer(consumer_key, consumer_secret);

            // Set the HTTPS request correctly
            httpsRequest.setOAuthConsumer(consumer);

            try {
                log.info("sending get request to" + URLDecoder.decode(url, ENCODE_FORMAT));
                int responseCode = httpsRequest.sendGetRequest(url); 

                // Send the request
                if(responseCode == HTTP_STATUS_OK) {
                    log.info("Response ");
                } else {
                    log.error("Error in response due to status code = " + responseCode);
                }
                log.info(httpsRequest.getResponseBody());
            } catch(UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                log.error("Encoding/Decording error");
            } catch (IOException e) {
                log.error("Error with HTTP IO", e);
            } catch (Exception e) {
                log.error(httpsRequest.getResponseBody(), e);
                return 0;
            }
        } else {
            log.error("Key/Secret does not exist");
        }
        return 1;
    }

    private String getSearchString() {
        return "701+first+avenue+sunnyvale";
    }

    private boolean isConsumerKeyExists() {
        if(consumer_key.isEmpty()) {
            log.error("Consumer Key is missing. Please provide the key");
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }

    private boolean isConsumerSecretExists() {
        if(consumer_secret.isEmpty()) {
            log.error("Consumer Secret is missing. Please provide the key");
            return false;
        }
        return true;
    }

    /**
    * @param args
    */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        BasicConfigurator.configure();

        try {
            SignPostTest signPostTest = new SignPostTest();
            signPostTest.returnHttpData();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            log.info("Error", e);
        }
    }
}


/** StHttpRequest  **/
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpsURLConnection;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;

import oauth.signpost.OAuthConsumer;
import oauth.signpost.exception.OAuthCommunicationException;
import oauth.signpost.exception.OAuthExpectationFailedException;
import oauth.signpost.exception.OAuthMessageSignerException;


/**
 * @author David Hardtke
 * @author xyz
 * Simple HTTPS Request implementation
 */
public class StHttpRequest {

private static final Logger log = Logger.getLogger(StHttpRequest.class);

    private String responseBody = "";
   
    private OAuthConsumer consumer = null;

    /** Default Constructor */
    public StHttpRequest() { }
   
    public StHttpRequest(OAuthConsumer consumer) {
        this.consumer = consumer;
    }

    public HttpsURLConnection getConnection(String url) 
    throws IOException,
        OAuthMessageSignerException,
        OAuthExpectationFailedException, 
        OAuthCommunicationException
    {
     try {
             URL u = new URL(url);

             HttpsURLConnection uc = (HttpsURLConnection) u.openConnection();
             
             if (consumer != null) {
                 try {
                     log.info("Signing the oAuth consumer");
                     consumer.sign(uc);
                     
                 } catch (OAuthMessageSignerException e) {
                     log.error("Error signing the consumer", e);
                     throw e;

                 } catch (OAuthExpectationFailedException e) {
                 log.error("Error signing the consumer", e);
                 throw e;
                 
                 } catch (OAuthCommunicationException e) {
                 log.error("Error signing the consumer", e);
                 throw e;
                 }
                 uc.connect();
             }
             return uc;
     } catch (IOException e) {
     log.error("Error signing the consumer", e);
     throw e;
     }
    }
    
    /**
     * Sends an HTTP GET request to a url
     *
     * @param url the url
     * @return - HTTP response code
     */
    public int sendGetRequest(String url) 
    throws IOException,
    OAuthMessageSignerException,
    OAuthExpectationFailedException, 
    OAuthCommunicationException {
    
    
        int responseCode = 500;
        try {
            HttpsURLConnection uc = getConnection(url);
            
            responseCode = uc.getResponseCode();
            
            if(200 == responseCode || 401 == responseCode || 404 == responseCode){
                BufferedReader rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(responseCode==200?uc.getInputStream():uc.getErrorStream()));
                StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
                String line;
                while ((line = rd.readLine()) != null) {
                    sb.append(line);
                }
                rd.close();
                setResponseBody(sb.toString());
            }
         } catch (MalformedURLException ex) {
            throw new IOException( url + " is not valid");
        } catch (IOException ie) {
            throw new IOException("IO Exception " + ie.getMessage());
        }
        return responseCode;
    }


    /**
     * Return the Response body
     * @return String
     */
    public String getResponseBody() {
        return responseBody;
    }

    /**
     * Setter
     * @param responseBody
     */
    public void setResponseBody(String responseBody) {
        if (null != responseBody) {
            this.responseBody = responseBody;
        }
    }
   
    /**
     * Set the oAuth consumer
     * @param consumer
     */
    public void setOAuthConsumer(OAuthConsumer consumer) {
        this.consumer = consumer;
    }
}

placespotter.php

<?php
/* Pre-requisite: Download the required PHP OAuth class from http://oauth.googlecode.com/svn/code/php/OAuth.php. This is used below */
require("OAuth.php");

$url = "https://yboss.yahooapis.com/geo/placespotter";

$cc_key = "ENTER YOUR CONSUMER KEY HERE";
$cc_secret = "ENTER YOUR CONSUMER SECRET HERE";

$text = "EYES ON LONDON Electric night in 100-meter dash
LONDON (AP) — Around the 2012 Olympics and its host city with journalists from
The Associated Press bringing the flavor and details of the games to you:
LET'S RUN TWO TODAY
The fastest men in the world on one of the fastest tracks around. Should make
for an electric night in the 100-meter dash.
Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and the rest of a blazing will run in the semifinals,
with the fastest advancing to the finals on Sunday night.
Bolt was just OK in the preliminaries on Saturday, starting poorly on his way
to a 10.09. That's good for sixth fastest, but the world record holder says he
feels great heading into the big day. Americans Ryan Bailey and Justin Gatlin
are also in the mix.";

$args = array();

$args["documentType"] = urlencode("text/plain");
$args["documentContent"] = urlencode($text);

$consumer = new OAuthConsumer($cc_key, $cc_secret);
$request = OAuthRequest::from_consumer_and_token($consumer, NULL,"POST", $url,
$args);
$request->sign_request(new OAuthSignatureMethod_HMAC_SHA1(), $consumer, NULL);
$url = sprintf("%s?%s", $url, OAuthUtil::build_http_query($args));
$ch = curl_init();
$headers = array($request->to_header());
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST, 'POST');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$rsp = curl_exec($ch);
print_r($rsp);
?>

placespotter.pl

use strict;
use lib 'extra_mods';
use lib 'extra_mods/5.8';
use JSON;
use Net::OAuth;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use Data::Dumper;

$Net::OAuth::PROTOCOL_VERSION = Net::OAuth::PROTOCOL_VERSION_1_0A;

my $expected_result_format = 'xml'; #xml or json


my %args;
$args{q} = "701+first+avenue+sunnnyvale"; # This is the query we are searching for
$args{format} = $expected_result_format; 
$args{count} = 1; # number of results to be returned

my $buckets = "placespotter"; # placefinder, placespotter(BOSS Geo services)

print get_response(\%args,$buckets);

sub get_response {
    my %args = %{(shift)};
    my $buckets = shift;

    my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;

    # PROVIDE YOUR KEY HERE
    my $cc_key = "";

    # PROVIDE YOUR SECRET HERE
    my $cc_secret = "";

    # Source Url
    my $url = "https://yboss.yahooapis.com/geo/$buckets";

    # Create request
    my $request = Net::OAuth->request("request token")->new(
            consumer_key => $cc_key,  
            consumer_secret => $cc_secret, 
            request_url => $url, 
            request_method => 'GET', 
            signature_method => 'HMAC-SHA1',
            timestamp => time, 
            nonce => 'hsu94j3884jdopsl',
            callback => 'http://printer.example.com/request_token_ready',
            extra_params => \%args 
            );

    # Sign request        
    $request->sign;

    # Get message to the Service Provider
    my $res = $ua->get($request->to_url); 

    # If request is success, display content
        if ($res->is_success) {
            return $res->content;
        }
        else {
        # Print error and die
                        Dumper $res;
            die "Something went wrong";
        }
}

placespotter.rb

require 'oauth_util.rb'
require 'net/http'

def get_response(args,buckets)
    url = "https://yboss.yahooapis.com/geo/"+buckets+"?"
    arg_count = 0
    args.each do|key,value|
        url = url + key + "=" + value+"&"
        ++arg_count
    end

    if(arg_count > 0) 
        url.slice!(url.length-1)
    end 

    parsed_url = URI.parse( url )

    o = OauthUtil.new
    o.consumer_key = "<em><strong>ADD YOUR KEY HERE</strong></em>"
    o.consumer_secret = "<strong>ADD YOUR SECRET HERE</strong>"

    Net::HTTP.start( parsed_url.host ) { | http |
        req = Net::HTTP::Get.new "#{ parsed_url.path }?#{ o.sign(parsed_url).query_string }"
        response = http.request(req)
        return response.read_body
    }
end

args = Hash.new
args["format"] = "xml"
#args["format"] = "json"
args["q"] = "watch1"
args["count"] = "1"

buckets = "placespotter"

print get_response(args,buckets)

The Yahoo! BOSS APIs are shutting down on March 31, 2016. If anyone is looking for a good replacement for PlaceSpotter, I recently launched Geoparser.io -- it's free to use during the public beta period and you can request an API key through the website: https://geoparser.io/