Natural Language client libraries

This page shows how to get started with the Cloud Client Libraries for the Cloud Natural Language API. Client libraries make it easier to access Google Cloud APIs from a supported language. Although you can use Google Cloud APIs directly by making raw requests to the server, client libraries provide simplifications that significantly reduce the amount of code you need to write.

Read more about the Cloud Client Libraries and the older Google API Client Libraries in Client libraries explained.

Install the client library

C++

See Setting up a C++ development environment for details about this client library's requirements and install dependencies.

C#

If you are using Visual Studio 2017 or higher, open nuget package manager window and type the following:

Install-Package Google.Apis

If you are using .NET Core command-line interface tools to install your dependencies, run the following command:

dotnet add package Google.Apis

For more information, see Setting Up a C# Development Environment.

Go

go get cloud.google.com/go/language/apiv1

For more information, see Setting Up a Go Development Environment.

Java

If you are using Maven, add the following to your pom.xml file. For more information about BOMs, see The Google Cloud Platform Libraries BOM.

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
      <artifactId>libraries-bom</artifactId>
      <version>26.51.0</version>
      <type>pom</type>
      <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.cloud</groupId>
    <artifactId>google-cloud-language</artifactId>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

If you are using Gradle, add the following to your dependencies:

implementation 'com.google.cloud:google-cloud-language:2.55.0'

If you are using sbt, add the following to your dependencies:

libraryDependencies += "com.google.cloud" % "google-cloud-language" % "2.55.0"

If you're using Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse, you can add client libraries to your project using the following IDE plugins:

The plugins provide additional functionality, such as key management for service accounts. Refer to each plugin's documentation for details.

For more information, see Setting Up a Java Development Environment.

Node.js

npm install --save @google-cloud/language

For more information, see Setting Up a Node.js Development Environment.

PHP

composer require google/apiclient

For more information, see Using PHP on Google Cloud.

Python

Note: See the migration guide for information about migrating to the latest Python client library. For more information on setting up Python development environment, such as installing and using pip, see the Python Development Environment Setup Guide.

pip install --upgrade google-cloud-language

For more information, see Setting Up a Python Development Environment.

Ruby

gem install google-api-client

For more information, see Setting Up a Ruby Development Environment.

Set up authentication

To authenticate calls to Google Cloud APIs, client libraries support Application Default Credentials (ADC); the libraries look for credentials in a set of defined locations and use those credentials to authenticate requests to the API. With ADC, you can make credentials available to your application in a variety of environments, such as local development or production, without needing to modify your application code.

For production environments, the way you set up ADC depends on the service and context. For more information, see Set up Application Default Credentials.

For a local development environment, you can set up ADC with the credentials that are associated with your Google Account:

Install the Google Cloud CLI, then initialize it by running the following command:
```
gcloud init
```
If you're using a local shell, then create local authentication credentials for your user account:
```
gcloud auth application-default login
```
You don't need to do this if you're using Cloud Shell.

A sign-in screen appears. After you sign in, your credentials are stored in the local credential file used by ADC.

Use the client library

The following example shows how to use the client library.

C++


#include "google/cloud/language/v2/language_client.h"
#include <iostream>

auto constexpr kText = R"""(
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this
continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal.)""";

int main(int argc, char* argv[]) try {
  if (argc != 1) {
    std::cerr << "Usage: " << argv[0] << "\n";
    return 1;
  }

  namespace language = ::google::cloud::language_v2;
  auto client = language::LanguageServiceClient(
      language::MakeLanguageServiceConnection());

  google::cloud::language::v2::Document document;
  document.set_type(google::cloud::language::v2::Document::PLAIN_TEXT);
  document.set_content(kText);
  document.set_language_code("en-US");

  auto response = client.AnalyzeEntities(document);
  if (!response) throw std::move(response).status();

  for (auto const& entity : response->entities()) {
    if (entity.type() != google::cloud::language::v2::Entity::NUMBER) continue;
    std::cout << entity.DebugString() << "\n";
  }

  return 0;
} catch (google::cloud::Status const& status) {
  std::cerr << "google::cloud::Status thrown: " << status << "\n";
  return 1;
}

Go


// Sample language-quickstart uses the Google Cloud Natural API to analyze the
// sentiment of "Hello, world!".
package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"log"

	language "cloud.google.com/go/language/apiv1"
	"cloud.google.com/go/language/apiv1/languagepb"
)

func main() {
	ctx := context.Background()

	// Creates a client.
	client, err := language.NewClient(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("Failed to create client: %v", err)
	}
	defer client.Close()

	// Sets the text to analyze.
	text := "Hello, world!"

	// Detects the sentiment of the text.
	sentiment, err := client.AnalyzeSentiment(ctx, &languagepb.AnalyzeSentimentRequest{
		Document: &languagepb.Document{
			Source: &languagepb.Document_Content{
				Content: text,
			},
			Type: languagepb.Document_PLAIN_TEXT,
		},
		EncodingType: languagepb.EncodingType_UTF8,
	})
	if err != nil {
		log.Fatalf("Failed to analyze text: %v", err)
	}

	fmt.Printf("Text: %v\n", text)
	if sentiment.DocumentSentiment.Score >= 0 {
		fmt.Println("Sentiment: positive")
	} else {
		fmt.Println("Sentiment: negative")
	}
}

Java

// Imports the Google Cloud client library
import com.google.cloud.language.v1.Document;
import com.google.cloud.language.v1.Document.Type;
import com.google.cloud.language.v1.LanguageServiceClient;
import com.google.cloud.language.v1.Sentiment;

public class QuickstartSample {
  public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
    // Instantiates a client
    try (LanguageServiceClient language = LanguageServiceClient.create()) {

      // The text to analyze
      String text = "Hello, world!";
      Document doc = Document.newBuilder().setContent(text).setType(Type.PLAIN_TEXT).build();

      // Detects the sentiment of the text
      Sentiment sentiment = language.analyzeSentiment(doc).getDocumentSentiment();

      System.out.printf("Text: %s%n", text);
      System.out.printf("Sentiment: %s, %s%n", sentiment.getScore(), sentiment.getMagnitude());
    }
  }
}

Node.js

async function quickstart() {
  // Imports the Google Cloud client library
  const language = require('@google-cloud/language');

  // Instantiates a client
  const client = new language.LanguageServiceClient();

  // The text to analyze
  const text = 'Hello, world!';

  const document = {
    content: text,
    type: 'PLAIN_TEXT',
  };

  // Detects the sentiment of the text
  const [result] = await client.analyzeSentiment({document: document});
  const sentiment = result.documentSentiment;

  console.log(`Text: ${text}`);
  console.log(`Sentiment score: ${sentiment.score}`);
  console.log(`Sentiment magnitude: ${sentiment.magnitude}`);
}

Python

# Imports the Google Cloud client library
from google.cloud import language_v1

# Instantiates a client
client = language_v1.LanguageServiceClient()

# The text to analyze
text = "Hello, world!"
document = language_v1.types.Document(
    content=text, type_=language_v1.types.Document.Type.PLAIN_TEXT
)

# Detects the sentiment of the text
sentiment = client.analyze_sentiment(
    request={"document": document}
).document_sentiment

print(f"Text: {text}")
print(f"Sentiment: {sentiment.score}, {sentiment.magnitude}")

Additional resources

C++

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for C++:

C#

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for C#:

Go

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Go:

Java

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Java:

Node.js

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Node.js:

PHP

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for PHP:

Python

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Python:

Ruby

The following list contains links to more resources related to the client library for Ruby: