How to do sharepoint people search via webservice?

Question

I need to access search for people in SharePoint 2010 from a webservice.

I have tried this querypacket:

            sb.Append("<QueryPacket xmlns='urn:Microsoft.Search.Query'>");
            sb.Append("<Query>");
            sb.Append("<Context>");
            sb.Append("<QueryText language=\"en-US\" type=\"MSSQLFT\">");
            sb.Append("SELECT ");
            sb.Append("preferredname, ");
            sb.Append("Department, ");
            sb.Append("WorkPhone, ");
            sb.Append("WorkEmail, ");
            sb.Append("Path ");
            sb.Append("FROM SCOPE() ");
            sb.Append("WHERE ");
            sb.Append("(\"DAV:contentclass\" = 'urn:content-class:SPSPeople') ");
            sb.Append(" AND (\"FirstName\" LIKE '" + fname + "%') AND (\"LastName\" LIKE '" + lname + "%')");             
            sb.Append("</QueryText>");
            sb.Append("</Context>");
            sb.Append("<Range><Count>" + resultcount.ToString() + "</Count></Range>");
            sb.Append("</Query>");
            sb.Append("</QueryPacket>");

but I get this error msg:

<ResponsePacket xmlns="urn:Microsoft.Search.Response">
   <Response domain="">
      <Status>ERROR_SERVER</Status>   
      <DebugErrorMessage>System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException</DebugErrorMessage>
   </Response>
</ResponsePacket>

(reposted from http://stackoverflow.com/q/6580020/67249)

---UPDATE

I found a lab exercise to do this exact search at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/gg981317, And when I copied the query, I still got the KeyNotFoundException exception. My query is not at fault. I am searching against the 2010 Information Worker Demonstration and Evaluation Virtual Machine as per the Lab

---UPDATE 2 Copied the query from http://www.codeproject.com/KB/sharepoint/DepartmentPeopleViewer1.aspx?display=Print and STILL I got the System.Collections.Generic.KeyNotFoundException message!

Searching for normal documents bring back results though.

---UPDATE 3

Using the tool suggested by Chris Beckett (thank you!) I run this query: SELECT * FROM SCOPE() WHERE "scope"= 'People' and get the same error as above.

---UPDATE 4

I finally got results: the issue was not the queries, but the fact that the IW VM was using our company's DNS! Fixed that, and every people search works! Thank you for all the contributions!

Answer 1

The Search Query syntax is finicky and a lot of people have problems getting it just right. There is a fantastic tool you can use to test and customize your search query until you get it right:

http://www.mosssearch.com/

Download the search test tool, fill out the input fields, and it generates the Query Xml, and can even execute and return the results in Xml or Dataset format.

My next suggestion is to incrementally cut down the query until it executes (e.g. remove the And from the Where clause, remove fields from the Select clause) to try to isolate which part may be causing the problem.

UPDATE: I wish you had mentioned that you had FAST installed. Although the syntax is mostly the same for calling the search web service, when fast is installed you now have the option of submitting queries targeted at SharePoint Search using Keywords or SQL syntax, or FAST using FQL. This makes the syntax of the query that needs to be submitted a little different.

I cleaned up a copy of the request Xml to support a SharePoint server with FAST integration - you can download the sample here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3763013/SharePointStackExchange/PeopleSearchQuery.txt

Answer 2

'Select * ' will not work, please try:

SELECT Path
FROM Scope()
WHERE "SCOPE" = 'People'

It looks like one (or more) of the fields you're using in the query don't exist.

Answer 3

Stupid remark maybe, but:

• Does search for userprofiles work in your UI? you can check it out by entering "content-class:SPSPeople" in your searchbox.
  • Assuming this happens on your development box: try to run your query agains only your servername: http://servername/ instead of http://servername.domain.com. Localhost or 127.0.0.1 might be an option too