How to use third party extension search algorithm in my module? magento 2.1.5

Question

I have a third party extension installed on my website. The extension has a powerful search engine. I have created a mobile app which gets data from magento2 REST APi. However the default magento search algorithm is bad. I want to create a new module which does the following:

• Accepts search keyword sent from mobile app.
• Sends the search keyword to the third party extension or use its algorithm to search the data.
• Return a result.

I know how to create a magento module which extends Api. But I can't find a way to use the third party app in my module.

Answer 1

You can create custom module and post data to controller action from mobile app.

Controller File Name : SearchListing.php

<?php
// you can trigger the controller action from app posting search term to it
// api url will be : http://domain/front_name/controller_name/action_name
// lets consider in our case url will be http://example.com/api/searchlisting
namespace NameSpace\Modulename\Controller;

use Magento\Framework\App\Action\Context;
use Magento\Store\Model\StoreManagerInterface;
use Magento\Catalog\Model\ResourceModel\Product\CollectionFactory;
use NameSpace\Modulename\Helper\Data as CustomerAPIHelper;


class SearchListing extends \NameSpace\Modulename\Controller\Authentication\Magento\Framework\App\Action\Action
{
  /**
   * @var Magento\Store\Model\StoreManagerInterface
   */
  protected $_storeManagerInterface;

  /**
   * @var CustomApiHelper
   */
  protected $_customApiHelper;   

  protected $_productCollectionFactory;

  /**
   * @param Context     $context
   * @param Category $_category
   * @param PageFactory $resultPageFactory
   * @param StoreManagerInterface $storeManagerInterface
   */
  public function __construct(
      Context $context,
      StoreManagerInterface $storeManagerInterface,
      CollectionFactory $productCollectionFactory,
      CustomerAPIHelper $customapihelper

  ) {
      $this->_productCollectionFactory = $productCollectionFactory;
      $this->_storeManagerInterface = $storeManagerInterface;
      $this->_customApiHelper = $customapihelper;
      parent::__construct($context);
    }

  public function execute()
  {
    try{
        $request = $this->_request->getParams();
        if(!empty($request))
        {
          // get the search term submitted from mobile app
          $search_term = $request["search_term"];
          $temp = array();
          $productCollectionData = array();
          $fieldsToSelect = array('name', 'short_description','price','image');
          // Call to ThirdParty Module to which you will pass $search_term

          $response = $this->ThirdPartyFunctionAcceptingSearchTermAsParameter($search_term);

          echo json_encode(array('status' => true,'data' => $response));  
        } else {
          echo json_encode(array('status' => false,'message' => "Search Term missing"));
          exit;
        }
    } catch(Exception $e) {
      echo json_encode(array('status' => false,'message' => $e->getMessage()));
      exit;
    } 
  }
}

etc/frontend/routes.xml

    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    <config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../../../../lib/internal/Magento/Framework/App/etc/routes.xsd">
        <router id="standard">
            <route id="api" frontName="api">
                <module name="NameSpace_ModuleName" />
            </route>
        </router>
    </config>