WSDL Geocoder Client
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007The basic question is do you geocode all your address data en masse and create Google Maps calls based on the resulting coordinates? Or, do you interpose a method of geocoding between your application and the API, such that addresses are converted to latitude and longitude each time the needed map is called? The latter is the sexier approach, and has attracted some clever solutions. One example makes use of the free geocoding service provided at geocoder.us, which comes in XML-RPC, REST and SOAP flavors.
First, you have to transmit the street address to the geocoder service like this (SOAP example):
< ?p hp
// Create new instance of the SoapClient class
// You'll need to download the WSDL file from:
// http://geocoder.us/dist/eg/clients/GeoCoder.wsdl