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Asked: 2026-06-10T21:04:36+00:00

In my new Ruby on rails application I want to find the users country

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In my new Ruby on rails application I want to find the users country code.
So I am using MaxMind GeoIp. when I downloaded the gzip file after gunzip it gives me a GeoIP.dat file and I am stuck here. Can any one help.
If their is a program to open it or some procedure to use it.
Or if any one can suggest me the other way.

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  1. Editorial Team

    As @Kyle pointed out, you can download “human-readable” CSV files instead of binary DAT files. MaxMind’s “GeoLite” downloads are here.

    The CSV file format is described here.

    But note (from the link above):

    Due to the large size of geolocation databases, we generally recommend using our binary format with one of our APIs, since they are highly optimized for speed and disk space. On the other hand, if you have a requirement to import the data into a SQL database, the CSV format is recommended.

    The APIs are listed here. There is no Javascript API listed, but there are a couple of options for Ruby.

    So to answer your question directly: You would not “open” the dat file directly as you would a spreadsheet document. Instead you would write your own program that uses their API to read the dat file, and perform whatever tasks or queries you design it to do. Check out their API documentation for details of how you might get started with that.

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