While dotCMS's content REST apis are robust and fully fleshed out, we have some features that are only accessable via java and not via REST, for example the site search API.
The example below is a small velocity script that can be modified to provide site search results via REST. It uses the VTL api, the scripting api endpoint and can be customized to meet whatever use case you can imagine.
To use this, create a file in your dotCMS instance called:
/application/apivtl/search/get.vtl
and put the code below into that file. It is designed to search a site search index with the alias of "default" - though this can be changed in the file.
You can then call the endpoint like so: /api/vtl/search?q=costa
or
/api/vtl/search?q=costa+rica&limit=3&p=2
where limit is the number of results and 2 is the page of results.
##SETTING VARIABLES =========
#set($exclude = "-mimeType:*css* -mimeType:*js* -mimeType:*plain -mimeType:*jpg -mimeType:*png -mimeType:*jpeg -mimeType:*javascript* -mimeType:*velocity*")
#if ($UtilMethods.isSet($request.getParameter("q")))
#set($q = $request.getParameter("q"))
#end
#set($show = $request.getParameter("limit"))
#if(! $UtilMethods.isSet($show))
#set($show = "20")
#end
#set($page = $request.getParameter("p"))
#if(! $UtilMethods.isSet($page))
#set($page = 0)
#end
#set($page = $math.add($page, 0))
#if($page < 0)
#set($page = 0)
#end
#set($offset = $math.mul($page, $math.toInteger($show)))
#set($end = $math.mul($math.add($page,1), $math.toInteger($show)))
#if($UtilMethods.isSet($request.getParameter("q")))
## QUERY =============
#set($runQ = $q.replaceAll("\"", ""))
#set($newQ = "")
#if(!$runQ.contains("+"))
#foreach($xx in $runQ.split(" "))
#set($newQ = " $newQ +(content:$xx title:$xx $xx*) ")
#end
#set($runQ = "$newQ")
#end
#if($UtilMethods.isSet($mimeType))
#set($runQ = "$runQ +mimeType:$mimeType")
#end
#if($UtilMethods.isSet($keyword))
#if($keyword.contains(" "))
#set($runQ = "$runQ +keywords:${esc.q}$keyword${esc.q}")
#else
#set($runQ = "$runQ +keywords:$keyword")
#end
#end
#if($UtilMethods.isSet($modifiedOn))
#set($runQ = "$runQ +modified:$modifiedOn")
#end
#set($runQ = "$runQ $exclude")
##CALLING SEARCH VIEWTOOL =======
##set($indexToSearch = "Site Search")
## null for the first argument searches the 'default' index
#set($searchresults = $sitesearch.search($!runQ, $offset, $end))
#end
#set($returnResults = [])
#foreach($result in $searchresults.results)
#set($map = {})
$map.put("id", $result.id)
$map.put("uri", $result.uri)
$map.put("title", $result.title)
$map.put("host", $result.host)
$map.put("score", $result.score)
$map.put("language", $result.language)
$map.put("keywords", $result.keywords)
$map.put("description", $result.description)
$map.put("contentLength", $result.contentLength)
$map.put("author", $result.author)
$map.put("modified", $result.modified)
$map.put("mimeType", $result.mimeType)
#foreach($highlight in $result.highlights)
$map.put("highlight", $highlight)
#break
#end
$map.put("matches", ${result.highlights.size()})
$returnResults.add($map)
#end
$dotJSON.put("results", $returnResults)
$dotJSON.put("size", $searchresults.size)
$dotJSON.put("query", $json.generate($searchresults.query)