Tutorial: Understanding Search Context Status

Learning Objectives

In this tutorial, you’ll learn:

Why monitoring search context status is important
The different states a search context can be in
How to check the status of a search context
How to handle different status values in your applications

Prerequisites

Before starting this tutorial, please ensure you have:

Completed the Creating Your First Search Context tutorial
A valid search context ID from the previous tutorial
Your Aspose Cloud credentials (Client ID and Client Secret)
A valid access token for the Aspose Cloud API

Why Monitor Search Context Status?

In Aspose.Imaging Cloud’s reverse image search system, operations like feature extraction and image searching can take time to complete, especially with large image collections. The search context status allows you to:

Determine if the context is ready for further operations
Track the progress of ongoing operations
Diagnose issues when operations don’t complete as expected

Understanding Search Context States

A search context can be in one of these states:

Idle: The search context is ready for operations (initial state)
ExtractingFeatures: The API is currently processing and extracting features from images
MatchingFeatures: The API is matching features between images (during search operations)
Searching: A search operation is in progress

Step 1: Obtain an Access Token

First, you need to authenticate with the Aspose Cloud API:

curl -v "https://api.aspose.cloud/oauth2/token" \
-X POST \
-d 'grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=YOUR_CLIENT_ID&client_secret=YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET' \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-H "Accept: application/json"

Save the access token from the response for use in the next step.

Step 2: Check the Search Context Status

Use the following API call to check the status of your search context:

curl -v "https://api.aspose.cloud/v3/imaging/ai/imageSearch/YOUR_SEARCH_CONTEXT_ID/status" \
-X GET \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "Accept: application/json" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN"

Replace YOUR_SEARCH_CONTEXT_ID with the ID you received when creating the search context and YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN with the token from Step 1.

Step 3: Interpret the Response

You’ll receive a response similar to this:

{
  "Id": "76901fe6-1427-4112-9fa2-8261cca7524a",
  "SearchStatus": "Idle",
  "Code": 200,
  "Status": "OK"
}

The SearchStatus field tells you the current state of your search context:

Idle: The context is ready for operations
ExtractingFeatures: Feature extraction is in progress
MatchingFeatures: Feature matching is in progress
Searching: A search operation is currently running

Try It Yourself

Now, let’s practice checking the status of your search context:

Replace YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET with your actual credentials
Obtain an access token using the first curl command
Replace YOUR_SEARCH_CONTEXT_ID with your actual search context ID
Replace YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN with the token you received
Execute the second curl command to check the status
Observe the returned status value

Using SDK Libraries

Java SDK Example

import com.aspose.imaging.cloud.sdk.api.ImagingApi;
import com.aspose.imaging.cloud.sdk.model.SearchContextStatus;

public class GetSearchContextStatusExample {
    
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Get your clientId and clientSecret from https://dashboard.aspose.cloud/
        String clientId = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID";
        String clientSecret = "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET";
        
        // Create instance of the API
        ImagingApi api = new ImagingApi(clientId, clientSecret);
        
        // Your search context ID from previous operations
        String searchContextId = "YOUR_SEARCH_CONTEXT_ID";
        
        try {
            // Get search context status
            SearchContextStatus status = api.getImageSearchStatus(searchContextId, null, null);
            
            // Print the status information
            System.out.println("Search context ID: " + status.getId());
            System.out.println("Current status: " + status.getSearchStatus());
            
            // Check if the context is ready for operations
            if (status.getSearchStatus().equals("Idle")) {
                System.out.println("The search context is ready for operations");
            } else {
                System.out.println("The search context is busy: " + status.getSearchStatus());
            }
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

.NET SDK Example

using Aspose.Imaging.Cloud.Sdk.Api;
using Aspose.Imaging.Cloud.Sdk.Model;
using System;

namespace AsposeImagingCloudTutorials
{
    class GetSearchContextStatusExample
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Get your clientId and clientSecret from https://dashboard.aspose.cloud/
            string clientId = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID";
            string clientSecret = "YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET";
            
            // Create instance of the API
            ImagingApi api = new ImagingApi(clientId, clientSecret);
            
            // Your search context ID from previous operations
            string searchContextId = "YOUR_SEARCH_CONTEXT_ID";
            
            try
            {
                // Get search context status
                SearchContextStatus status = api.GetImageSearchStatus(searchContextId);
                
                // Print the status information
                Console.WriteLine("Search context ID: " + status.Id);
                Console.WriteLine("Current status: " + status.SearchStatus);
                
                // Check if the context is ready for operations
                if (status.SearchStatus == "Idle")
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("The search context is ready for operations");
                }
                else
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("The search context is busy: " + status.SearchStatus);
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error: " + ex.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}

Implementing Status Checking in Real Applications

In real-world applications, you’ll want to implement a polling mechanism to check the status regularly until it returns to “Idle” after operations. Here’s a simple pseudocode example:

function waitForIdle(searchContextId):
    while true:
        status = getSearchContextStatus(searchContextId)
        if status == "Idle":
            return true
        else:
            wait for 2 seconds
            continue

This pattern ensures you don’t attempt operations while the search context is busy.

What You’ve Learned

In this tutorial, you’ve learned:

The importance of monitoring search context status
The different states a search context can be in
How to check the status using the REST API
How to use SDK libraries to check status programmatically
A pattern for waiting until a search context is ready for operations

Troubleshooting Tips

Context Not Found: If you receive an error that the search context doesn’t exist, double-check the ID.
Long-Running Operations: Some operations may take time, especially with large images or collections.
Authentication Errors: Ensure your access token is valid and hasn’t expired.

Next Steps

Now that you understand how to monitor search context status, you’re ready to move on to the next tutorial in our series:

→ Tutorial: Adding Images to Your Search Context

In the next tutorial, you’ll learn how to add images to your search context, which is essential for building your image database for searching.

Further Practice

To reinforce what you’ve learned:

Create a script that polls the status until it’s “Idle”
Investigate how the status changes after adding images to the search context
Create a simple dashboard that displays the current status of your search context

Helpful Resources

Have questions about this tutorial? Please feel free to post your questions on our support forum.