Thesaurus term web services

Two complementary web services provide information from the USGS Thesaurus and related controlled vocabularies in JSONP format. These services enable web pages to obtain detailed information about thesaurus terms for use in dynamic web interfaces. An example web page making use of these services is at http://www.usgs.gov/science/tab-term.html

A term search service supports the jQuery autocomplete function, returning an array of objects describing thesaurus terms that begin with the given text. The match is not case sensitive.

Service URL

http://www.usgs.gov/science/term-search.php

Parameters

thcode	Thesaurus identifier; if not specified, the USGS Thesaurus will be used
term	Fragment of text to match candidate terms
callback	Name of a function in which to wrap the results, to support JSONP
u	Set to zero to exclude non-preferred terms from the results

Output

An array of objects, each containing the following members:

code	Unique identifier for a term within the thesaurus
label	Text matching the input string, may be the non-preferred term
value	Descriptor text of the matched thesaurus term

Special cases

If no term is given, the service returns an empty array array: http://www.usgs.gov/science/term-search.php

Example

(line breaks and extra spaces added here for clarity)

http://www.usgs.gov/science/term-search.php?term=con

[
{"code":"1754","label":"conference proceedings",       "value":"conference proceedings"},
{"code": "237","label":"conflict resolution methods",  "value":"decision support methods"},
{"code": "410","label":"coniferous forests ecosystems","value":"forest ecosystems"},
{"code": "192","label":"conodonts",                    "value":"conodonts"},
{"code": "776","label":"conservation",                 "value":"natural resource management"},
{"code": "194","label":"consumers (organisms)",        "value":"consumers (organisms)"},
{"code":"1313","label":"consumptive use (water)",      "value":"water use"},
{"code": "452","label":"contacts (geologic)",          "value":"geologic contacts"},
{"code": "196","label":"contaminant transport",        "value":"contaminant transport"},
{"code": "769","label":"contamination and pollution",  "value":"contamination and pollution"},
{"code":"1145","label":"continental drift",            "value":"tectonic processes"},
{"code": "199","label":"continental lithosphere",      "value":"continental lithosphere"},
{"code":"1776","label":"contract research programs",   "value":"external research support"},
{"code": "202","label":"controlled burns",             "value":"controlled fires"},
{"code": "202","label":"controlled fires",             "value":"controlled fires"},
{"code": "203","label":"controlled flooding",          "value":"controlled flooding"},
{"code":"1744","label":"controlled vocabularies",      "value":"terminologies and classifications"}
]

Term details

Provides detailed information about a given thesaurus term, which may be specified by its unique identifier or by the text of its descriptor.

Service URL

http://www.usgs.gov/science/term.php

Parameters

thcode	Thesaurus identifier; if not specified, the USGS Thesaurus will be used
code	Unique identifier of the descriptor
text	Text of the descriptor, if descriptors are distinct in the specified thesaurus
callback	Name of a function in which to wrap the results, to support JSONP

Output

A single object containing the following members:

term

Single term object specifying the term, as follows:

code	Unique identifier for this term
name	Descriptor text for this term
parent	Unique identifier of the parent of this term
scope	Scope note for the term

Array of objects specifying USE-FOR and USE-WITH relationships:

name	Text of the non-preferred term
usewith	false for a simple non-preferred term, or a term object if the text is to be used for both the given descriptor and another descriptor together

Array of term objects specifying the broader terms, each the parent of the previous entry

Array of term objects specifying the narrower terms

Array of term objects specifying the related terms

Special cases

If no parameters are given, the service returns an array of objects describing the thesauri that are available in the current database instance: http://www.usgs.gov/science/term.php
If a valid thesaurus code is given but neither a term code nor a descriptor is given, the root node of the thesaurus will be returned: http://www.usgs.gov/science/term.php?thcode=2

Example

http://www.usgs.gov/science/term.php?code=769

Thesaurus term web services

Search

Special cases

Example

Term details

Special cases

Example