Re: [tlug] Google Maps API

[Simon Cozens <simon@example.com>]

Dave M G wrote:
> I'm wondering if it has a way I can exploit it's location data so I can 
> take user input in the form of the word "Tokyo", and get back a latitude 
> and longitude coordinate to store in my database.

I've done exactly this. It's really really easy.
Send a query to
http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=Tokyo&output=csv&key=$key

You'll get back

200,1,35.678451,139.682282

First number is HTTP status, second number is accuracy 
(http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/reference.html#GGeoAddressAccuracy)
and the last two are lat and long.

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