Question

I was wondering if anyone could help me fine tune my script.

I have what I need but I’m just trying to figure out how to make it recursive.

e.g. I currently have:

$key    = 'XXXXXXXXXXXX';
$sensor = 'false';
$query  = 'Place 1';

$url = 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?key='.$key.'&query='.urlencode($query).'&sensor='.$sensor;

$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
$places = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// echo $url;

$output = json_decode($places);


$i = 0;


while ($output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lat != '') {
    echo '<strong>' . $query . '</strong><br />';
    echo $output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lat . ', '. $output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lng;
    echo '<br />' . $output->results[$i]->formatted_address;
    echo '<hr />';

    $i++;
}

// there is a delay between when the next page token is given and when it is ready to be accessed
sleep(5);

if ($output->next_page_token != '') {

    $url = 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?pagetoken='.$output->next_page_token.'&key='.$key.'&sensor='.$sensor;

    // repeating myself now!

    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $places = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    $output = json_decode($places);

    $i = 0;

    while ($output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lat != '') {
        echo '<strong>' . $query . '</strong><br />';
        echo $output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lat . ', '. $output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lng;
        echo '<br />' . $output->results[$i]->formatted_address;
        echo '<hr />';

        $i++;
    }


}

So, ideally, I am looking at how to restructure so that the above will run for as long as there is a next page token.

Answer 1

At the very least you could replace the if with a while. And maybe re-factor the body of the while into a function.

But you don’t need to call it recursively, just iteratively until you’re done (i.e. no more next page token)

function doQuery($url)
{
    $ch = curl_init($url);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    $places = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    $output = json_decode($places);

    $i = 0;

    while ($output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lat != '') {
        echo '<strong>' . $query . '</strong><br />';
        echo $output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lat . ', '. $output->results[$i]->geometry->location->lng;
        echo '<br />' . $output->results[$i]->formatted_address;
        echo '<hr />';

        $i++;
    }

    sleep(5);

    return $output->next_page_token;
}

$next_page_token = doQuery($url);

while ($next_page_token != '') 
{
   $url = 'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?pagetoken='.$next_page_token.'&key='.$key.'&sensor='.$sensor;

   $next_page_token = doQuery($url);
}