Implementation of Bing Spell Check API v7 returns 0 flaggedTokens

Question

I'm trying to implement the Bing Spell Check API v7. This is my current function:

# spell check
function bing_spell_check($q, $lang) {
    $param = array();
    $param['appName'] = PRO_NAME;
    $param['text'] = $q;
    $param['setLang'] = $lang;
    $url = 'https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/SpellCheck?'.http_build_query($param);
    $process = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
        array(
            'Accept: application/ld+json',
            'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: '.PRO_BING_KEY_SPELL
        )
    );
    $response = curl_exec($process);
    return $response;
}

The problem is that this example:

print_r(bing_spell_check('en', 'whts yur name?'));

Returns:

{  
   "@context":{  
      "@vocab":"http:\/\/bingapis.com\/v7\/schemas\/",
      "s":"http:\/\/schema.org\/",
      "@base":"https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/"
   },
   "@type":"SpellCheck",
   "flaggedTokens":[
   ]
}

Which means it has not found any errors. I ran the very same test in Bing's test tool, and I received this structure instead:

{
  "_type": "SpellCheck",
  "FlaggedTokens": [
    {
      "Offset": 0,
      "Token": "whts",
      "Type": "UnknownToken",
      "Suggestions": [
        {
          "suggestion": "what's",
          "Score": 0.909352914464075
        },
        {
          "suggestion": "whats",
          "Score": 0.810588859407343
        },
        {
          "suggestion": "what is",
          "Score": 0.680176771139565
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "Offset": 5,
      "Token": "yur",
      "Type": "UnknownToken",
      "Suggestions": [
        {
          "suggestion": "your",
          "Score": 0.909352914464075
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Am I missing something. Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

It is quite simple, you just mixed up your function parameters. You have

function bing_spell_check($q, $lang) {}

and

bing_spell_check('en', 'whts yur name?');

That is where the problem starts, $q is now en and $lang is now whts yur name?. Thus when you create your $param array you have the language and the text mixed up (which will cause the Spell Check API to silently fail). You can simply fix this by changing the parameter order:

function bing_spell_check($lang, $q) {}

Now your code

<?php
define(PRO_BING_KEY_SPELL, 'XXX');
define(PRO_NAME, 'XXX');

function bing_spell_check($lang, $q) {
    $param = array();
    $param['appName'] = PRO_NAME;
    $param['text'] = $q;
    $param['setLang'] = $lang;
    $url = 'https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/spellcheck?'.http_build_query($param);
    $process = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 10);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    curl_setopt($process, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER,
        array(
            'Accept: application/ld+json',
            'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: '.PRO_BING_KEY_SPELL
        )
    );
    $response = curl_exec($process);
    return $response;
}

print_r(bing_spell_check('en', 'whts yur name?'));
?>

results in

{
    "@context": {
        "@vocab": "http:\/\/bingapis.com\/v7\/schemas\/",
        "s": "http:\/\/schema.org\/",
        "@base": "https:\/\/api.cognitive.microsoft.com\/api\/v7\/"
    },
    "@type": "SpellCheck",
    "flaggedTokens": [{
        "offset": 0,
        "token": "whts",
        "type": "UnknownToken",
        "suggestions": [{
            "suggestion": "what's",
            "score": 0.909352914464075
        }, {
            "suggestion": "whats",
            "score": 0.810588859407343
        }, {
            "suggestion": "what is",
            "score": 0.680176771139565
        }]
    }, {
        "offset": 5,
        "token": "yur",
        "type": "UnknownToken",
        "suggestions": [{
            "suggestion": "your",
            "score": 0.909352914464075
        }]
    }]
}