tag:opensoul.org,2009:/2007/3/27/graticule-and-acts_as_geocodable-go-international/changes Mephisto Drax 2007-03-27T00:57:33Z brandon tag:opensoul.org,2007-03-27:267:1 2007-03-27T00:57:33Z <p>The single biggest request that I’ve gotten for <a href="http://opensoul.org/2006/10/31/announcing-graticule-geocoding-api">Graticule</a> and <a href="http://opensoul.org/2007/2/13/geocoding-as-easy-as-1-2">acts_as_geocodable</a> has been for international support. So, for those outside the US (50% that read this blog according to google analytics), I have a present for you.</p> <p>Last weekend I committed support for <a href="http://emad.fano.us/blog/?p=277">Local Search Maps</a> (thanks to <a href="http://jystewart.net/">James Stewart</a>), and <a href="http://jystewart.net/">PostcodeAnywhere</a>, both of which have some international support, at least for Canada and Europe. I also added <a href="http://geocoder.ca/">geocoder.ca</a>.</p> <p>Most of the international geocoding services seem to require a little more structured parameters, so with Graticule 0.2, all of the geocoders can take a hash (and some require it). As a result of gaining international support, the field names that Graticule uses have been changed to be more international-friendly: street, locality, region, postal_code, and country.</p> <pre><code class="ruby">g = Graticule.service(:local_search_maps).new location = g.locate :street =&gt; '48 Leicester Square', :locality =&gt; 'London', :country =&gt; 'UK' location.coordinates #=&gt; [51.510036, -0.130427]</code></pre> <h3>Geocoding IP Addresses</h3> <p>Several people mentioned that they would rather use acts_as_geocodable, but chose to use <a href="http://geokit.rubyforge.org/">GeoKit</a>, another good geocoding library (but with a little different philosophy), because it had support for geocoding IP addresses. So, with a flick of the wrist and a twitch of the nose, Graticule now supports <a href="http://hostip.info">HostIP</a> for geocoding IP addresses:</p> <pre><code class="ruby">g = Graitucle.service(:host_ip).new location = g.locate &quot;64.233.167.99&quot; location.coordinates #=&gt; [37.402, -122.078] location.locality #=&gt; &quot;Mountain View&quot; location.country #=&gt; &quot;US&quot; location.region #=&gt; &quot;CA&quot;</code></pre> <p>Along with this, acts_as_geocodable has a helper method, <code>remote_location</code>:</p> <pre><code class="ruby">@nearest_store = Store.find(:nearest, :origin =&gt; remote_location) if remote_location</code></pre> <p>Be careful not to rely too heavily on remote_location because the location of many IP addresses cannot be determined through HostIP.</p> <h3>Feedback</h3> <p>I’m just an ignorant North-American, so I would love some feedback from people using Graticule and acts_as_geocodable outside the US.</p>