ChaCha API Documentation

Contents:

• Quick ChaCha Answer API Request
• Sample Quick ChaCha Answer API Response
• Sample Quick ChaCha Answer API Response - Groovy Example
• ChaCha Trends API Request
• Sample ChaCha Trends API Response
• Sample ChaCha Trends API Response - Groovy Example 
• Top ChaCha Answers
• Error Codes

Quick ChaCha Answer API Request

Sample Quick ChaCha Answer API Response

 {
   "qvpResults":
      [
         {
            "answer": {
               "id":-1,
               "category":"",
               "hits":-1,
               "source":"http://chacha.com",
               "created":"",
               "updated":"",
               "answer":"answer text",
               "score":"1",
               "guideRating":""
            },
            "question": {
               "id":-1,
               "hits":-1,
               "score":"1",
               "suggestion":"world"
            },
            "type":"autoguide"
         }
         ...
      ],
   "success":true,
   "path":"/answer/search.json"
}

Groovy Example

import groovyx.net.http.*
import static groovyx.net.http.ContentType.*
import static groovyx.net.http.Method.*

def apiUri = "http://query.chacha.com"
def searchPath = "/answer/search.json"
def apiKey = "your api key"
def queryString = 'How old is Brad Pitt?'

def http = new HTTPBuilder( apiUri )

http.request( GET, JSON ) 
{
     uri.path = searchPath
     uri.query = [ v:'1.0', query: queryString ]

     headers.'User-Agent' = 'Mozilla/5.0 Ubuntu/8.10 Firefox/3.0.4'
     headers.'apikey' = apiKey

     response.success = 
     { 
          resp, json ->
          if((json.success==true) && (json.qvpResults.answer))
          {
               println 'Answer:  ' + json.qvpResults.answer.answer.get(0)
               println 'Category:  ' + json.qvpResults.answer.category.get(0)
               println 'Source:  ' + json.qvpResults.answer.source.get(0)
          } else 
          {
               println json
          }
     }

     response.failure = 
     { 
          resp ->
              println "Unexpected error: ${resp.statusLine.statusCode} : ${resp.statusLine.reasonPhrase}"
       }
}

Sample ChaCha Trends API Request

Sample ChaCha Trends API Response

 {
   "request": {
      "date": "2009-12-08 12:00:00",
      "count": "1000",
      "prettyOutput": "true",
      "source": "RawQuery"
   },
   "success": true,
   "trends": [
      "trending keywords 1",
      "trending keywords 2",
      ...
   ]
}

Groovy Example

import groovyx.net.http.*
import static groovyx.net.http.ContentType.*
import static groovyx.net.http.Method.*

def apiUri = "http://query.chacha.com"
def trendsPath = "/trends/getTrends.json"
def apiKey = "your api key"
def source = 'RawQuery'
def date = '2010-02-15 00:00:00'
def count = '30'
def prettyOutput = 'true'

def http = new HTTPBuilder( apiUri )

http.request( GET, JSON ) 
{
     uri.path = trendsPath
     uri.query = [ v:'1.0', source: source, date: date, count: count, prettyOutput: prettyOutput ]

     headers.'User-Agent' = 'Mozilla/5.0 Ubuntu/8.10 Firefox/3.0.4'
     headers.'apikey' = apiKey

     response.success = 
     { 
          resp, json ->
          if((json.success==true) && (json.trends))
          {
               json.trends.each{trend->
                    println "Trend = ${trend}"
               }
          }
          else
          {
               println json
          }
     }

     response.failure = 
     { 
          resp ->
              println "Unexpected error: ${resp.statusLine.statusCode} : ${resp.statusLine.reasonPhrase}"
       }
}

Top ChaCha Answers

Our Top ChaCha Answers is a call to our RSS feeds.  You can create any custom feed for just about everything we have.

The URL to generate your custom feed is:

• http://www.chacha.com/search/feed.rss2?query=your-custom-keyword

Some examples might be:

• http://www.chacha.com/search/feed.rss2?query=haiti+earthquake
• http://www.chacha.com/search/feed.rss2?query=coupon
• http://www.chacha.com/search/feed.rss2?query=indianapolis
• http://www.chacha.com/search/feed.rss2?query=barack+obama
• http://www.chacha.com/search/feed.rss2?query=lil+wayne+lyrics

The URL to get the latest questions and answers is:

• http://www.chacha.com/answers.rss2

There are a number of ways to integrate RSS feeds into your web site or application depending on what you are coding in.  Here are a few resources for adding an RSS feed into your site.

• ASP RSS Aggregator
• ASP.NET RSS Aggregator
• Coldfusion RSS Aggregator
• Java RSS Aggregator
  
• Perl RSS Aggregator
• PHP RSS Aggregator
• Python RSS Aggregator

Error Codes

Here are the error codes you may see as you are testing your application:

400 Bad Request
403 Not Authorized
403 Developer Inactive
403 Over Queries Per Second Limit
403 Over Rate Limit
403 Unknown Referer
403 Service over QPS Limit
503 API Maintentance/Service Unavailable
504 Gateway Timeout