This is a small function included in the Minibots Class that converts an address to a couple of coordinates Latitude, Longitude that can be used to place a marker on a map.
This function uses Google’s geocoding service called with the file_get_contents function (CURL not needed).
The result is decoded with a preg_match call that searches for the center data of the map returned.
You can test the function with this online demo.
// ------------------------------------------
// converts a string with a stret address
// into a couple of lat, long coordinates.
// ------------------------------------------
public function getLatLong($address){
if (!is_string($address))die("All Addresses must be passed as a string");
$_url = sprintf('http://maps.google.com/maps?output=js&q=%s',rawurlencode($address));
$_result = false;
if($_result = file_get_contents($_url)) {
if(strpos($_result,'errortips') > 1 || strpos($_result,'Did you mean:') !== false) return false;
preg_match('!center:\s*{lat:\s*(-?\d+\.\d+),lng:\s*(-?\d+\.\d+)}!U', $_result, $_match);
$_coords['lat'] = $_match[1];
$_coords['long'] = $_match[2];
}
return $_coords;
}
Pardon my ignorance, but would you please explain in laymen terms exactly how to implement this. Thanks!
Oooo yes! U just saved me a few hours of work! Good job!
Best regards! Paweł
Not Working At All ..
Really Thanks!
i needed it!
Thaaanks
A better solution would be to use json_decode on the data. Running some benchmarks between the two on average json_decode is faster than preg_match.
// ——————————————
// converts a string with a stret address
// into a couple of lat, long coordinates.
// ——————————————
public function getLatLong($address){
if (!is_string($address))die(“All Addresses must be passed as a string”);
$_url = sprintf(‘http://maps.google.com/maps?output=js&q=%s’,rawurlencode($address));
if($_result = file_get_contents($_url)) {
$_result = json_decode($_result);
if($_result !== false || !empty($_result->results)) {
return $_result->results[0]->geometry->location;
}
}
return false;
}
Oh and use Maps API v3: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=%s&sensor=true
awesome little snippet :) thanks a lot!
Eric, the usage is pretty simple. add this into a php file, create a variable like
$address = “Rome, Italy”;
then simple use the function;)
print_r(getLatLong($address));
or
$coordinates = getLatLong($address);
$lat = $coordinates[‘lat’];
$long = $coordinates[‘long’];
hope it helps!
Big thanks for this sharing. Very helpfull for my works.
Awesome!
Thanks for this, had no idea this could be done in so few lines of code!
I needed to make a function that from a coordinate I’m back in that place and turned out something like this:
// from a pair (lat, long) coordinates to an address, city, state, country
function getCityFromLatLong($latLong){
if (!is_string($latLong))die(“All Addresses must be passed as a string”);
$_url = sprintf(‘http://maps.google.com/maps?output=js&q=%s’,rawurlencode($latLong));
$_result = false;
if($_result = file_get_contents($_url)) {
if(strpos($_result,’errortips’) > 1 || strpos($_result,’Did you mean:’) !== false) return false;
preg_match(‘/addressLines:\[.*?\]/’, $_result, $_match);
$_explode = explode(‘,’, substr($_match[0], strpos($_match[0], ‘,’)+2, strrpos($_match[0], ‘”‘)-strpos($_match[0], ‘,’)-2));
$_place[‘street’] = substr($_match[0], strpos($_match[0], ‘”‘)+1, strpos($_match[0], ‘,’)-strpos($_match[0], ‘”‘)-2);
$_place[‘city’] = $_explode[0];
$_place[‘state’] = $_explode[1];
$_place[‘country’] = $_explode[2];
}
return $_place;
}
Surely you can improve, and I’m not exported in regular expreciones as you can see. Any recommendation is welcome.
Thanks for this fine function, it helped me a lot.
Yeah! Fantastic! Thanks man!
Thanx for the code, was very helpful! :-)
Worked for me
By far the simplest solution I have seen
Many Many Thanks
Luke