Question

I went through this excellent tutorial of google https://developers.google.com/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch but i din’t understand the part where the xml file generated is read by the API. i went through the post twice but still not getting it. Could someone explain it to me please.?

Answer 1

I couldn’t figure out which part you didn’t understand so I’ll give a broad overview.

Reading the XML happens here:

function searchLocationsNear(center) {
  var radius = document.getElementById('radiusSelect').value;
  var searchUrl = 'phpsqlsearch_genxml.php?lat=' + center.lat() + '&lng=' + center.lng() + '&radius=' + radius;
  GDownloadUrl(searchUrl, function(data) {
    var xml = GXml.parse(data);
    var markers = xml.documentElement.getElementsByTagName('marker');

searchUrl points to the php file with appropriate parameters, then GDownloadUrl performs the Ajax call to the php file. function(data) is the callback that is run when the XML is returned. Finally, markers is produced from the XML, taking elements with tag name marker. Then the rest of that block of code is placing markers and updating the sidebar with the results.