Here is an update on a previous posting regarding using Google maps and Geocoding APIs.

I had previously tried to use ontok to do my geocoding for a project that uses Google maps. As mentioned earlier I found ontok because I couldn’t get Yahoo’s geocoding API to work from my current webhost (Dreamhost).

Well, it turns out that ontok’s geocoding was inaccurate about 50% of the time at least for addresses in South Florida. So I revisited the Yahoo API. I still had the problem of not being able to use php’s file_get_contents() function on Dreamhost so I went back to trying to use cURL in order to call the Yahoo API.

In my research I found this resource at MapBuilder.net which provides a php script to call Yahoo’s geocoding API using cURL. As an added bonus it hooks up the API call via AJAX! I didn’t use the AJAX method for my project but it was very helpful for me to see some working code for the geocoding.

Next I hacked Phoogle (again!), this time getting it to work with Google Maps API v.2 as well as using the Yahoo cURL call for the geocoding.

Web 2.0 baby!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 26th, 2006 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Web Development.