Watson APIs Java SDK

Java client library to use the Watson APIs.

Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Maven
  • Gradle
• Usage
• Getting the Service Credentials
• IBM Watson Services
  • Assistant
  • Discovery
  • Language Translator
  • Natural Language Classifier
  • Natural Language Understanding
  • Personality Insights
  • Speech to Text
  • Text to Speech
  • Tone Analyzer
  • Tradeoff Analytics
  • Visual Recognition
• Changes for v4.0
• Using a Proxy
• Android
• Running in IBM Cloud
• Default Headers
• Debug
• Eclipse and Intellij
• License
• Contributing

Installation

Maven

All the services:

<dependency>
	<groupId>com.ibm.watson.developer_cloud</groupId>
	<artifactId>java-sdk</artifactId>
	<version>5.2.0</version>
</dependency>

Only Discovery:

<dependency>
	<groupId>com.ibm.watson.developer_cloud</groupId>
	<artifactId>discovery</artifactId>
	<version>5.2.0</version>
</dependency>

Gradle

All the services:

'com.ibm.watson.developer_cloud:java-sdk:5.2.0'

Only Assistant:

'com.ibm.watson.developer_cloud:assistant:5.2.0'

Development Snapshots

Snapshots of the development version are available in Sonatype's snapshots repository.

Gradle

Add repository to your project Gradle file

allprojects {
    repositories {
        maven { url "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots" }
    }
}

And then reference the snapshot version on your app module gradle Only Speech to Text:

'com.ibm.watson.developer_cloud:speech-to-text:5.2.1-SNAPSHOT'

JAR

Download the jar with dependencies here.

Now, you are ready to see some examples.

Usage

The examples within each service assume that you already have service credentials. If not, you will have to create a service in IBM Cloud.

If you are running your application in IBM Cloud (or other platforms based on Cloud Foundry), you don't need to specify the credentials; the library will get them for you by looking at the VCAP_SERVICES environment variable.

Getting the Service Credentials

You will need the username and password (api_key for Visual Recognition) credentials, and the API endpoint for each service. Service credentials are different from your IBM Cloud account username and password.

To get your service credentials, follow these steps:

1. Log in to IBM Cloud
2. In the IBM Cloud Catalog, select the service you want to use.
3. Click Create.
4. On the left side of the page, click Service Credentials, and then View credentials to view your service credentials.
5. Copy url, username and password(api_key for AlchemyAPI or Visual Recognition).

Changes for v4.0

Version 4.0 focuses on the move to programmatically-generated code for many of the services. See the changelog for the details.

Migration

This version includes many breaking changes as a result of standardizing behavior across the new generated services. Full details on migration from previous versions can be found here.

Android

The Android SDK utilizes the Java SDK while making some Android-specific additions. This repository can be found here. It depends on OkHttp and gson.

Using a Proxy

Override the configureHttpClient() method and add the proxy using the OkHttpClient.Builder object.

For example:

Assistant service = new Assistant("2018-02-16") {
  @Override
  protected OkHttpClient configureHttpClient() {
    Proxy proxy = new Proxy(Proxy.Type.HTTP, new InetSocketAddress("proxyHost", 8080));
    return super.configureHttpClient().newBuilder().proxy(proxy).build();
  }
};

service.setUsernameAndPassword("<username>", "<password>");

WorkspaceCollection workspaces = service.listWorkspaces().execute();
System.out.println(workspaces);

For more information see: OkHTTPClient Proxy authentication how to?

Running in IBM Cloud

When running in IBM Cloud (or other platforms based on Cloud Foundry), the library will automatically get the credentials from VCAP_SERVICES. If you have more than one plan, you can use CredentialUtils to get the service credentials for an specific plan.

PersonalityInsights service = new PersonalityInsights("2016-10-19");
String apiKey = CredentialUtils.getAPIKey(service.getName(), CredentialUtils.PLAN_STANDARD);
service.setApiKey(apiKey);

Default Headers

Default headers can be specified at any time by using the setDefaultHeaders(Map<String, String> headers) method.

The example below sends the X-Watson-Learning-Opt-Out header in every request preventing Watson from using the payload to improve the service.

PersonalityInsights service = new PersonalityInsights("2016-10-19");

Map<String, String> headers = new HashMap<String, String>();
headers.put(HttpHeaders.X_WATSON_LEARNING_OPT_OUT, 1);

service.setDefaultHeaders(headers);

// All the api calls from now on will send the default headers

Specifying a service URL

You can set the correct API Endpoint for your service calling setEndPoint().

For example, if you have the conversation service in Germany, the Endpoint may be https://gateway-fra.watsonplatform.net/conversation/api.

You will need to call

Assistant service = new Assistant("2018-02-16");
service.sentEndPoint("https://gateway-fra.watsonplatform.net/conversation/api")

401 Unauthorized error

Make sure you are using the service credentials and not your IBM Cloud account/password. Check the API Endpoint, you may need to update the default using setEndPoint().

Debug

HTTP requests can be logging by adding a loggging.properties file to your classpath.

handlers=java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.level=FINE
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.formatter=java.util.logging.SimpleFormatter
java.util.logging.SimpleFormatter.format=%1$tb %1$td, %1$tY %1$tl:%1$tM:%1$tS %1$Tp %2$s %4$s: %5$s%n
.level=SEVERE
# HTTP Logging - Basic
com.ibm.watson.developer_cloud.util.HttpLogging.level=INFO

The configuration above will log only the URL and query parameters for each request.

For example:

Mar 30, 2017 7:31:22 PM okhttp3.internal.platform.Platform log
INFO: --> POST https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/tradeoff-analytics/api/v1/dilemmas?generate_visualization=false http/1.1 (923-byte body)
Mar 30, 2017 7:31:22 PM okhttp3.internal.platform.Platform log
INFO: <-- 200 OK https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/tradeoff-analytics/api/v1/dilemmas?generate_visualization=false (104ms, unknown-length body)
Mar 30, 2017 7:31:23 PM okhttp3.internal.platform.Platform log
INFO: --> POST https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/tradeoff-analytics/api/v1/dilemmas?generate_visualization=true http/1.1 (12398-byte body)
Mar 30, 2017 7:31:35 PM okhttp3.internal.platform.Platform log
INFO: <-- 200 OK https://gateway.watsonplatform.net/tradeoff-analytics/api/v1/dilemmas?generate_visualization=true (12311ms, unknown-length body)

Warning: The logs generated by this logger when using the level FINE or ALL has the potential to leak sensitive information such as "Authorization" or "Cookie" headers and the contents of request and response bodies. This data should only be logged in a controlled way or in a non-production environment.

Build + Test

To build and test the project you can use Gradle (version 1.x).

Gradle:

cd java-sdk
gradle jar  # build jar file (build/libs/watson-developer-cloud-5.2.0.jar)
gradle test # run tests
gradle check # performs quality checks on source files and generates reports
gradle testReport # run tests and generate the aggregated test report (build/reports/allTests)
gradle codeCoverageReport # run tests and generate the code coverage report (build/reports/jacoco)

Working with Eclipse and Intellij IDEA

If you want to work on the code in an IDE instead of a text editor you can easily create project files with gradle:

gradle idea     # Intellij IDEA
gradle eclipse  # Eclipse

Open Source @ IBM

Find more open source projects on the IBM Github Page

License

This library is licensed under Apache 2.0. Full license text is available in LICENSE.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Code of Conduct

See CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

Other

If you are having difficulties using the APIs or you have a question about the IBM Watson Services, please ask a question on dW Answers or Stack Overflow.