Quickstart: Check spelling with Bing Spell Check REST API and Python

2020-07-15

Use this quickstart to make your first call to Bing Spell Check REST API. This simple Python application sends a request to the API and returns a list of suggested corrections.

Although this application is written in Python, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages. The source code for this application is available on GitHub

Prerequisites

Python 3.x

Initialize the application

Create a new Python file in your favorite IDE or editor, and add the following import statements:
```
import requests
import json
```

Create variables for the text you want to spell check, your subscription key, and your Bing Spell Check endpoint.

api_key = "<ENTER-KEY-HERE>"
example_text = "Hollo, wrld" # the text to be spell-checked
endpoint = "https://api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/SpellCheck"

Create the parameters for the request

Create a new dictionary with text as the key, and your text as the value.
```
data = {'text': example_text}
```
Add the parameters for your request:
1. Assign your market code to the mkt parameter with the = operator. The market code is the code of the country/region you make the request from.
2. Add the mode parameter with the & operator, and then assign the spell-check mode. The mode can be either proof (catches most spelling/grammar errors) or spell (catches most spelling errors, but not as many grammar errors).
```
params = {
    'mkt':'en-us',
    'mode':'proof'
    }
```

Add a Content-Type header and your subscription key to the Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key header.

headers = {
    'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
    'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key': api_key,
    }

Send the request and read the response

Send the POST request by using the requests library.

response = requests.post(endpoint, headers=headers, params=params, data=data)

Get the JSON response and print it.

json_response = response.json()
print(json.dumps(json_response, indent=4))

Run the application

If you're using the command line, use the following command to run the application:

python <FILE_NAME>.py

Example JSON response

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

{
   "_type": "SpellCheck",
   "flaggedTokens": [
      {
         "offset": 0,
         "token": "Hollo",
         "type": "UnknownToken",
         "suggestions": [
            {
               "suggestion": "Hello",
               "score": 0.9115257530801
            },
            {
               "suggestion": "Hollow",
               "score": 0.858039839213461
            },
            {
               "suggestion": "Hallo",
               "score": 0.597385084464481
            }
         ]
      },
      {
         "offset": 7,
         "token": "wrld",
         "type": "UnknownToken",
         "suggestions": [
            {
               "suggestion": "world",
               "score": 0.9115257530801
            }
         ]
      }
   ]
}

Next steps

Create a single-page web app

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