How to get various managed property values ​​using SharePoint search?

Question

I am creating the telephone directory of my organization (an AJAX application that accesses the search.asmx web service). I would like to show a list box in which the user can select a department (which is stored in a managed property Department). To populate the list with values, I need to somehow select all the individual values ​​of this property. Is this possible through the search.asmx web service?

What I found:

• an article that says it's possible , but it doesn't use the web service interface
• Microsoft has a white document saying that "if the protocol client specifies at least one property, it MUST also specify the Path property. This is not the case, the protocol server MUST return the status code" ERROR_BAD_QUERY ".

The two conclusions are somewhat controversial. (and, yes, the search does return ERROR_BAD_QUERY).

Answer 1

Why bother or complicate a web service check?

• Get all properties in a DataTable.
• Then create a DataView, and then you can apply DISTINCT to the desired column.
• Finally, use it to bind to your list.