Question

I want is to get the coordinates from a string (grabbed from the src of a Google Maps img). Below is a poor try of mine with regex that doesn’t work.

So, what is the best way to do this? With regex? In that case how should be composed?

$string = "//maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?sensor=false&center=56.393906,16.066206&zoom=12&size=344x170&language=sv&markers=56.393906,16.066206&maptype=roadmap&scale=1";

$matches = array();
preg_match('/center=(.*?)\zoom/s', $string, $matches);

... ?

Wanted end result:

$coordiates = (
    [0] = '56.393906',
    [1] = '16.066206'
);

Answer 1

You shouldn’t use a regex for something like this as it would be slower and more prone to break if URL changes. PHP has built in functions already for such a thing. Use parse_url() and parse_str() to easily accomplish it.

$string = "//maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?sensor=false&center=56.393906,16.066206&zoom=12&size=344x170&language=sv&markers=56.393906,16.066206&maptype=roadmap&scale=1";

parse_str(parse_url($string, PHP_URL_QUERY), $vars);

print_r($vars);

Outputs:

Array
(
    [sensor] => false
    [center] => 56.393906,16.066206
    [zoom] => 12
    [size] => 344x170
    [language] => sv
    [markers] => 56.393906,16.066206
    [maptype] => roadmap
    [scale] => 1
)

So to get your coordinates just do:

$coords = explode(',', $vars['center']);
print_r($coords);

// Outputs:
Array
(
    [0] => 56.393906
    [1] => 16.066206
)