Problems querying bill search

[markdboyd]

I've been having problems trying to query the bill search endpoint. I'm pretty sure that I'm doing something wrong, but I'm not sure what it is.

I'm using PHP as a backend and trying to use cURL to make the requests:

    // Get cURL resource
    $curl = curl_init('http://congress.api.sunlightfoundation.com/bills/search?query="gun control"&congress=114&per_page=50&apikey=MY_API_KEY');

    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array(
      'Content-Type: application/json'
    ));
    curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, 'Test');

    $curl_response = curl_exec($curl);

My response is always an empty string. I was previously prototyping the same functionality in Angular and having similar issues getting back empty responses. Is there some sort of CORS or user agent problem here?

[markdboyd]

I should add that my request URLs work fine if I paste them directly into the browser.

[konklone]

Is it possible that PHP's curl function isn't properly escaping the space in your query into %20?

(Also, Sunlight strongly suggests using the https:// version of the API), as do I.)

[markdboyd]

I think I have it figured out. I was constructing my query string manually, which meant that maybe some parameters were not being escaped properly. I changed to building my query string via http_build_queryand things seem to be working.

Also, I definitely plan on switching to use HTTPS. Thanks!

[markdboyd]

I'm getting a 504 from the API:

https://congress.api.sunlightfoundation.com/bills/search?query=gun+control&apikey=API_KEY

Also, I notice that I get different results depending on whether my query is formatted as gun+control or "gun control". Which one is the correct format?

Lastly, even when I wasn't getting 504, my requests to the API were periodically failing. Has anyone else noticed this?

[dwillis]

This should be fixed now.