Sabre : Searching for the best air offers with the Bargain Finder Max API

Introducing This Code Sample

We offer an API called Bargain Finder Max. It's a highly capable service empowering software developers to access Sabre's advanced air shopping product to find the best fares. It's built to be fast and flexible.

Bargain Finder Max is one of our more popular APIs. It shows how developers can easily call Bargain Finder Max, parse the results and display the content. Our goal is making it quicker for developers to get started using the API.

Consider this article as a partner to the sample app source code. You'll find explanations and additional resources written here to add context whenever possible. Source code for the sample app is stored in a repo on our GitHub account. If you don't know about GitHub, it's a popular hosting provider for storing code using the git revision control system. Accessing our source code is free and easy.

Another resource is a screencast-style, code walkthrough video that shows how to approach the sample app's source code.

What does the sample app look like when it runs? Here's a screenshot:

You'll see this sample app is command-line driven and text-only. The goal is reducing the complexity of the sample app code by simplifying the UI. To get you up and running and learning quickly.

How It Works

It's a command-line app that reads search criteria from a config file, authenticates, makes a request to Bargain Finder Max, stores the response, parses through the results and displays airfares. Choosing a simple, clean, text-based UI is meant to focus the learning for an audience of software developers.

Leverage the sample app as a jumping-off point for learning the Bargain Finder Max API. Experiment by changing the app's search criteria file and the request model.

Find the source code repo here: https://github.com/SabreDevStudio/bargain-finder-max-sample-nodejs.

Setting Up the Sample App

There are a few one-time-only steps for installing pre-requisites listed below.

Installing NodeJS

The sample app is written in NodeJS. You'll need to have its run-time installed on your local development computer. If you've never installed NodeJS please refer to the Node Foundation to find an installer most appropriate for your O/S.

Cloning With Git

Take a copy of the source code from our repo stored on GitHub. When you browse the Bargain Finder Max sample app repo you'll find the green button labeled 'clone.' Clicking it reveals the URL you'll use to 'git clone,' which is how source code is first copied down from the server to your computer.

Getting Sabre API Credentials

You'll need your Sabre REST APIs CERT-environment credentials. They're used by the sample app as part of the authentication flow to call Bargain Finder Max.

Installing Project Dependencies

Once you've installed NodeJS, and pulled down a copy of the source code, you'll need to install the app's open-source dependencies. That's accomplished by running this command in the local copy of the source code:

npm install

The npm (Node Package Manager) tool will pull down copies of all open-source code this app refers to. File transfers might take a few minutes.

Encoding Credentials

Using the APIs requires entering credentials so that the app can find them. Part of its logic is requesting a token in order to properly call the Bargain Finder Max API. Tokens are gained in part from private credentials.

Simply open up the app's source code and look at the file named config.js to find where they're declared. There are two attributes (secret and pcc) where values can be copied in as hardcoded strings or picked up from O/S environment variables that you create on your local development machine.

exports.api = {
   endpoint: 'https://api.test.sabre.com',
   secret: process.env.SWS_API_SECRET || '',
   pcc: process.env.SWS_API_PCC || ''
 };

Environment variables are preferred in this sample app because it keeps them hidden and protected. In this case all code is publicly visible in revision control, and that's not the place for private information.

• pcc - is the pseudo city code (your agency's unique identifier)
• secret - is a base64-encoded string computed from steps you can read about

Running the Sample App

The sample app is ready to run after setup. Enter this command in the local copy of the source code to run the sample app:

npm start

When this works normally the app renders a list of itineraries as seen in the image above. Results match the origin and destination for a given date range.

Updating the Search Criteria Config File

Changing search criteria is easy. Simply open up the app's source code, and look at the file named search_criteria.json to find airport and date pairs. Update any of the attributes to valid values and restart the app to see the search results.

{
   'fromAirportCode': 'DFW',
   'toAirportCode': 'SFO',
   'timeStampLeave': '2018-10-01T11:00:00',
   'timeStampReturn': '2018-10-08T11:00:00'
 }

Sabre APIs Used

Sample apps like this one are meant to highlight how a software developer might use particular APIs in the real world. Two Sabre APIs are highlighted in this example: Bargain Finder Max and Authentication.

Bargain Finder Max API

The sample app features the Bargain Finder Max API. App code demonstrates setting up and making a request. Then it demonstrates how to parse through the response to display parts of it. For more information on the Bargain Finder Max API look at these Sabre-hosted resources:

Authentication API

Most APIs are protected in some way. For example, they require authentication, and a valid token is sent up as part of the request header. Sabre APIs have this feature. The sample app demonstrates how to call the Authentication API with private account information (PCC and secret) to receive an access token in reply. The token is sent along subsequent API calls to prove the request is valid.

For more information on the authentication process look at this Sabre-hosted resource:

Next Steps

Make use of this sample app as a testing tool. It's a simple, flexible, jumping-off point for learning how to use Sabre APIs in general, and Bargain Finder Max in particular. Look up the Bargain Finder Max docs and discover all that it can do. Find something interesting? Call it by changing the request attribute values found in the file bfm_model.js. Save and run to see what new capabilities do.

Get in touch with us. GitHub allows communication through its repo-level issue and pull request channels. We also have an active community on Stack Overflow.