Let’s start by creating a Flask application to search for news articles using the Bing Search API. We’ll fetch the top 10 most recent articles for the specified keywords and display them in order from most to least recent.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bing/apis/bing-web-search-api
First, install Flask and the requests library for making API calls by running the following command:
pip install Flask requests
Create a new file called app.py and add the following code:
from flask import Flask, render_template
import requests
from dateutil.parser import parse
from dateutil import tz
app = Flask(__name__)
@app.route('/')
def index():
# Define the keywords you want to search for
keywords = ['keyword1', 'keyword2', 'keyword3']
# Replace 'your_api_key' with your actual Bing Search API key
api_key = 'your_api_key'
# Make API calls to Bing Search API to fetch articles
articles = []
seen_urls = set() # Keep track of article URLs to avoid duplicates
headers = {'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key': api_key}
for keyword in keywords:
url = f'https://api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/news/search?q={keyword}&count=10&sortBy=Date'
response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)
data = response.json()
if 'value' in data:
for article in data['value']:
if article['url'] not in seen_urls:
article['formattedDate'] = format_date(article['datePublished'])
articles.append(article)
seen_urls.add(article['url'])
# Sort the articles by their published time in descending order
articles.sort(key=lambda x: x['datePublished'], reverse=True)
# Limit the number of articles to display
articles = articles[:10]
return render_template('index.html', articles=articles)
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(debug=True)
Create a folder named templates and inside it, create a new file called index.html. Add the following code:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<title>News Aggregator</title>
<style>
body {
font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
background-color: #f3f3f3;
}
.container {
width: 80%;
margin: 0 auto;
background-color: #fff;
padding: 15px;
box-shadow: 0 2px 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1);
}
article {
border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
padding: 15px 0;
}
h1, h2, time {
margin: 0;
}
a {
color: #333;
text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class>
<div class="container">
<h1>News Aggregator</h1>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Now, run the Flask app using the command python app.py, and it will display the aggregated news articles with the specified keywords.
In this step, we will containerize the Flask application using Docker. Docker allows you to package an application with its dependencies into a standardized unit for software development. This helps ensure that your application runs consistently across different environments.
For Windows and macOS, download Docker Desktop from the official Docker website. For Linux, follow the official installation guide for your specific distribution.
Dockerfile in the same folder as your Flask applicationCreate a file named Dockerfile (with no file extension) in the same folder as your app.py. This file will contain instructions for building the Docker image.
Add the following content to your Dockerfile:
# Use the official Python base image
FROM python:3.9-slim
# Set the working directory to /app
WORKDIR /app
# Copy the requirements.txt file into the container
COPY requirements.txt .
# Install the Python dependencies
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
# Copy the rest of the application code into the container
COPY . .
# Expose the port the app will run on
EXPOSE 5000
# Set environment variables for Flask
ENV FLASK_APP=app.py
ENV FLASK_RUN_HOST=0.0.0.0
# Start the Flask app
CMD ["flask", "run"]
requirements.txt fileIn the same folder as your app.py and Dockerfile, create a file named requirements.txt. This file will list the Python dependencies required for your application.
Add the following content to your requirements.txt file:
Flask==2.1.1
requests==2.27.1
python-dateutil==2.8.2
Open a terminal or command prompt, navigate to the directory containing your Dockerfile, and run the following command:
docker build -t flask-news-aggregator .
This command builds a Docker image and tags it as flask-news-aggregator. The process might take some time, depending on your internet connection and computer’s performance.
After building the Docker image, run the following command to start the Docker container:
docker run -p 5000:5000 flask-news-aggregator
This command maps port 5000 on your local machine to port 5000 on the Docker container.
Now, you should be able to access the Flask application at http://localhost:5000 in your web browser.
To stop the Docker container, press Ctrl+C in the terminal or command prompt where the container is running.