Question

I’ve been trying to work out how to obtain the travel time between two locations (walking, driving etc…).

As I understand it, the only way to do this accurately is by retrieving a KML file from google, then parsing it.

Research has shown that it then needs to be parsed with SAX. The problem is, I can’t seem to work out how to extract the correct variables (the time). Does anybody know if / how this can be done?

Many thanks for your help,

Pete.

Answer 1

Parsing XML (what KML basically is), using a SAX-Parser: http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/blog/324/entry-2683-parsing-xml-in-java-part-1-sax/

<kml>
  <Document>
    <Placemark>
      <name>Route</name>
      <description>Distance: 1.4&#160;mi (about 30 mins)<br/>Map data &#169;2011 Tele Atlas </description>
    </Placemark>
  </Document>
</kml>

In the example you can see, that the guessed time is stored in the “description”-Tag. It’s saved in the last “Placemark”-Tag in the KML-File and it has a “<name>Route</name>“-Tag.

Getting this Tag with the SAX-Parser and extracting the time using regex should be easy done.