How to use the Microsoft Translator API over Windows Azure, for Windows Phone?

Question

Previously there the bing translator was easily accessible with the SOAP interface. Now it has been migrated to Windows Azure. I have registered in the Azure marketplace for 10000 letters per month (free). How can I translate text through the translator api, for windows phone in C#? Please help. I am not sure how to use the BeginExecute and EndExecute for queries.

I have downloaded and added the TranslatorContainer.cs to my project. For now I am just trying to get the Languages with the GetLanguagesForTranslation method. This is the code which I have written.

public partial class PhonePage1 : PhoneApplicationPage
{

    public PhonePage1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();

        Translator transInstance = new Translator();

    }
    class Translator
    {
        private Uri service_root;
        private TranslatorContainer context;

        public Translator()
        {
            service_root = new Uri("https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/MicrosoftTranslator/");
            context = new TranslatorContainer(service_root);
            context.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("ID","...........");
            var query = context.GetLanguagesForTranslation();
            query.BeginExecute(OnQueryComplete, query);
        }

        public void OnQueryComplete(IAsyncResult result)
        {
            var query = result as DataServiceQuery<Language>;

            string langstring = "";
            foreach (Language lang in query.EndExecute(result))
            {
                langstring += lang.Code + "\n";
            }
            MessageBox.Show(langstring);
        }
    }
}

In OnQueryComplete() the query is null even after the assignment. The result has the Properties IsCompleted as true, and statusCode is OK. I am not able to figure out how to go about this. Please help. Thank you

Answer 1

With help from Bing Translator team I got it working in my Silverlight Application:

1. UseDefaultCredentials needs to be turned off on the proxy

2. On the async callback, you were casting the result to a DSQ, but it’s the result’s AsyncState that needs to be casted. See below.

   private void Button_Click_1(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
   {
       var serviceUri = new Uri("https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/MicrosoftTranslator/");
       var accountKey = "**********************"; // 
       var tcode = new Microsoft.TranslatorContainer(serviceUri);
   
       tcode.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(accountKey, accountKey);
       tcode.UseDefaultCredentials = false;
       var query = tcode.GetLanguagesForTranslation();
       query.BeginExecute(OnQueryComplete, query);
   }
   
   public void OnQueryComplete(IAsyncResult result)
   {
       var query = (DataServiceQuery<Microsoft.Language>)result.AsyncState;
       var enumerableLanguages = query.EndExecute(result);
       string langstring = "";
       foreach (Microsoft.Language lang in enumerableLanguages)
       {
           langstring += lang.Code + "\n";
       }
       MessageBox.Show(langstring);
   }
   

This way you can use BeginExecute() and BeginEnd() to get Async results.

Answer 2

I had exact same problem and I was suggested that the issue may be related with the how the Async results are return internally when calling GetLanguagesForTranslation, however I did not dig further and just used Execute() to get the list of Language as below:

var serviceUri = new Uri("https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/MicrosoftTranslator/");
var accountKey = "***********************"; // 
var tcode = new TranslatorContainer(serviceUri);
tcode.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(accountKey, accountKey);
var languages = tcode.GetLanguagesForTranslation().Execute().ToArray(); 
foreach (var i in languages)
{
    Console.WriteLine(i.Code);
}

Not sure if that is what you are looking for but it worked in my case well.