General Questions
Pricing Questions
Technical Questions
General Questions
1. What are Objects Search Web APIs?
The Objects Search Web APIs service is a beta web program that enables developers to easily find and manipulate information on the web.
2. Who are Objects Search Web APIs for?
Objects Search Web APIs are for developers and researchers interested in using Objects Search as a resource in their applications.
3. How does the Objects Search Web APIs service work?
Developers write software programs that connect remotely to the Objects Search Web APIs service. Communication is performed via the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), an XML-based mechanism for exchanging typed information.
4. Why are Objects Search Web APIs useful?
The Objects Search Web APIs service gives you query access to Objects Search's web search, enabling you to develop software that accesses millions of web documents that are constantly refreshed.
5. What functionality comes with Objects Search Web APIs?
Developers can issue search requests to Objects Search's index and receive results as structured data. Objects Search Web APIs support the same search syntax as the ObjectsSearch.com site.
6. How many queries can I issue from my computer programs?
2,000 queries per day. If you want to integrate web search results from ObjectsSearch directly into your site then please contact us at
7. Can I develop commercial applications using Objects Search Web APIs?
You can develop any application you want, but you must abide by the Objects Search Web APIs terms of service.
8. Where do I go if I have questions about using Objects Search Web APIs?
You can also submit questions to
9. Is Objects Search providing a developer program?
Not at this time.
10. Does Objects Search provide technical support for Objects Search Web APIs?
Objects Search provides documentation and technical FAQs online. Also, you can submit questions and problem reports to
11.Can I use the source code distributed in the Objects Search Web APIs developer's kit?
The developer's kit includes some example Objects Search client Java code programming example, and a WSDL file you can use to generate code if your environment supports it.
The developer's kit contains some third-party libraries; your use of these libraries is subject to their terms and conditions.
12. What does it mean to be a "beta" service?
This means Objects Search does not guarantee the availability of the service. Since this is an experimental service, Objects Search may take the service down for maintenance, change the APIs in ways that may be incompatible with developer applications, or discontinue the service entirely.
However, "beta" also means your input can have an impact on how the service is ultimately configured. If you have ideas about how to improve Objects Searchp Web APIs, please email
Pricing Questions
1. Does it cost anything to use Objects Search Web APIs?
No. This is a free beta service.
2. Does Objects Search have any plans to sell Objects Search Web APIs as a service?
Not at this time but these services requires a fair amount of hardware and bandwidth.
Technical Questions
1. How are the Objects Search Web APIs implemented?
Objects Search Web APIs are implemented as a web service. The service supports several SOAP methods; these are described in an accompanying WSDL file that can be imported into your favorite web services programming environment. Alternately, you can use our custom Java library to call the service.
A web service is something you can call over the web from a program. For more background on web services, see http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a//webservices/2002/02/12/webservicefaqs.html.
SOAP is the Simple Object Access Protocol. It is used for information exchange and RPC, usually (but not necessarily) over HTTP. More information can be found at:
Developmentor SOAP FAQ: http://www.soaprpc.com/faqs/SoapFAQ.html
W3C specifications: http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/
WSDL is the Web Service Description Language. It provides a formal description of a web service, much like CORBA's IDL. The WSDL file is all you need to know how to call the web service; toolkits can generate proxy code from a WSDL file directly. The official WSDL definition is at http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl.
5. Is there a limit on the number of results I can receive per query?
Yes. You can retrieve a maximum of 10 results per query.
6. Can I submit source code for Objects Search so it can be included in the kit?
If you have written code you wish to share with the developer community, let us know by sending a email to
7. What's in the developer's kit?
The kit contains a WSDL file describing the Objects Search Web APIs service, a custom Java client library and example SOAP messages. Please take a look at README included in the kit for the most detailed description of the kit and the list of instructions.
8. What programming languages do you support?
The service has been tested with Java (Apache SOAP and Apache Axis), Perl (SOAP::Lite version 0.52), Ruby (SOAP4R), and C# in MS Visual Studio .NET. The service has not been tested with clients in other languages but it should work with any language with web services support.
9. What can I do with the WSDL file?
Many web services toolkits can take a WSDL file and automatically generate a client-side proxy to call the Objects Search Web APIs.
10. Is the WSDL file publicly available online?
Yes. You can find it at http://www.ObjectsSearch.com/ObjectsSearch.wsdl.
11. Can I see some example SOAP messages?
Check out the examples in the soap-samples directory in the developer kit.
12. How can I look at my own SOAP packets and debug my communication?
There are many tools that let you "sniff" your SOAP packets on the wire, usually implemented as an HTTP proxy. We like the Apache Axis tool org.apache.axis.utils.tcpmon.
13. Why do you provide Java client code if it can be generated from WSDL?
We wanted to provide the simplest possible start for developers; shipping a complete Java implementation was the easiest way to do that.
14. What Java packages do I need to use to write a client?
Everything you need to get started is in ossearchapi.jar . Advanced users may prefer to use their own Java SOAP implementations and use the WSDL file to generate client code.
15. What Perl packages do I need to use to write a client?
SOAP::Lite version 0.52 or newer works well.
16. Why do I get the error "Wrong Boolean value 'false'"?
There is a bug in SOAP::Lite versions prior to 0.52 that causes this error. Upgrade to a newer SOAP::Lite to eliminate this problem.
17. What languages in Microsoft Visual Studio .NET are supported?
The service has been tested with a C# client auto-generated from WSDL by the wsdl.exe tool. It should work fine from any .NET language.
18. What C# packages do I need to use to write a client?
You need the standard .NET framework; either from Visual Studio .NET or the Framework alone.
19. What is the exact sequence of steps needed to make a simple search client in Microsoft Visual Studio.NET?
20. Can I invoke ObjectsSearch Web APIs from Office XP applications (e.g., Excel)?
Currently, Office XP's SOAP implementation only supports simple SOAP types. The ObjectsSearch Web APIs service uses complex return types and therefore does not work with Office XP.
21. How do I make queries in languages other than English?
The ObjectsSearch Web APIs support requests and responses in UTF-8, allowing you to make requests in all of the world's languages.
Frequently Asked Questions
or visit Business Solutions
. Objects Search will do its best to answer as many questions as possible, but since this is a free beta service, we cannot guarantee that every question will be answered.
. We will do our best to reply to you, but we cannot guarantee that we will respond to every question we receive.
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. Unfortunately we cannot make any promises about including third-party code in our kit.
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