[RESOLVED] PHP/MySQL & Google maps

[aarchaic]

hey guys

I have a quesion regarding PHP/MySQL and google Maps.

i'm working on a section on our new updated site where clubs/venues/restaurants and so forth and even users can register and be able to see what places is near them and how far they are from one another.

what i need to do is take the address the user has put in work out the coordinates for the user and save it in a database.

Has anyone worked with this yet?

[aarchaic]

I just found the solution!

here is how its done....

<?php
$address=""; //address looking for
$key=""; // google map key that needs to be generate for your site by google maps
$file = file_get_contents("http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?output=xml&q=".
urlencode($address). "&key=".GOOGLE_MAP_KEY);

/**
* A Bug? It says it's utf-8, but it's really not :(
*/

$xml = iconv("ISO-8859-1", "UTF-8", $file);
$xml = simplexml_load_string($xml);

if (!is_object($xml))
throw new Exception("Could not connect to geocode server. Sent argument: $address");

if ($xml->Response->Status->code == 200) {

$coordinates = (string) $xml->Response->Placemark->Point->coordinates;
list($latitude, $longitude) = explode(',', $coordinates);

echo ("lat: $latitude - lon: $longitude");
} else {
throw new Exception("could not find $address");
}

?>