Question

how to parse JSON google maps JSON in php

i have do it in xml, but the coordinates driving direction’s not complete as i get with JSON, how we can get all coordinate driving with JSON in php?

if we do using xml

$xml = simplexml_load_file('http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/xml?origin='.$origin.'&destination='.$dest.'&sensor=false');
$startlat = $xml->xpath("/DirectionsResponse/route/leg/step/start_location/lat");
$startlng = $xml->xpath("/DirectionsResponse/route/leg/step/start_location/lng");
$distanceeach = $xml->xpath("/DirectionsResponse/route/leg/step/distance/value");
$distance = $xml->xpath("/DirectionsResponse/route/leg/distance/value");

but how to do with json?
and i want my variable $startlat, $startlng, etc, contains same value if we do with xml

Answer 1

You can retrieve data in JSON format, and then use json_decode() function to build stdClass object, then you can recursively walk through object’s property to convert it into (array) $response as this.

And then use Google Maps API response as an array. You can proceed with no converting to array, and use object of stdClass like this:

$response->DirectionsResponse->route->leg->step->start_location->lat;

To get the correct values you can always var_dump() you response object, and see what you want to get.

Hope, that helps.

---

Here is the code for usage Google JSON response from Google Translate API… which is much the same, as you need:

if (!is_null($json = json_decode(file_get_contents($url)))
{
    return $json->data->translations[0]->translatedText;
}

That’s it…