Go package for DuckDuckGo API

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that:

• emphasizes privacy
• does not record user information
• breaks out of the filter bubble

The API is described here. For example, the URL for querying about New York City is

http://api.duckduckgo.com/?q=New+York+City&format=json&pretty=1

The previous query causes DuckDuckGo to return the result in JSON format.

Function goduckgo.Query declared as

func Query(query string) (*Message, error)

generates the URL, sends it to DuckDuckGo, receives the result, unmarshals from JSON format to Message structure and returns a pointer to the structure.

At this moment, there is no automatic installation procedure. It is assumed that the package path is github.com/ajanicij/goduckgo, which means that the source file duckduck.go should be manually copied to the directory

$(GOROOT)/src/github.com/ajanicij/goduckgo/

and build by running command

go install github./com/ajanicij/goduckgo.

On an x86 Linux system, that will generate the binary $(GOROOT)/pkg/linux_386/github.com/ajanicij/goduckgo.a.

Look at the source for the command-line utility, askduck.go. It imports package github.com/ajanicij/goduckgo, generates the query in the variable query (for example, "New York City") and passes it to function goduckgo.Query. That function returns two values: *Message and error.

The source code of the command-line utility is askduck.go. It builds to command askduck. Its usage is: askduck [{flags}] <query>

Flags determine which fields we will see in the result. For example, if we want to search for "New York City," we can issue command askduck -All New York City

Flag -All tells the command that we want all fields.

Command askduck -help

(or askduck without any flags) will give us a help string that lists all available options:

Usage of ./askduck:
  -Abstract=false: Abstract
  -AbstractSource=false: Abstract Source
  -AbstractText=false: Abstract Text
  -AbstractURL=false: Abstract URL
  -All=false: All Fields
  -Answer=false: Answer
  -AnswerType=false: Answer Type
  -Definition=false: Definition
  -DefinitionSource=false: Definition Source
  -DefinitionURL=false: Definition URL
  -Heading=false: Heading
  -Image=false: Image
  -Redirect=false: Redirect
  -RelatedTopics=false: Related Topics
  -Results=false: Results
  -Type=false: Type

For example, query

askduck -Definition Europe

produces the following:

Definition: The sixth-largest continent, extending west from the Dardanelles, Black Sea, and Ural Mountains.