Google Maps - converting address to latitude & longitude - PHP backend?

This works for me:

<?php  $Address = urlencode($Address);  $request_url = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=".$Address."&sensor=true";  $xml = simplexml_load_file($request_url) or die("url not loading");  $status = $xml->status;  if ($status=="OK") {      $Lat = $xml->result->geometry->location->lat;      $Lon = $xml->result->geometry->location->lng;      $LatLng = "$Lat,$Lon";  }?>

References:

• http://www.fcsoftware.co.uk/blog/?p=66
• https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/geocoding

<?php/* * Given an address, return the longitude and latitude using The Google Geocoding API V3**/function Get_LatLng_From_Google_Maps($address) {    $address = urlencode($address);    $url = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=$address&sensor=false";    // Make the HTTP request    $data = @file_get_contents($url);    // Parse the json response    $jsondata = json_decode($data,true);    // If the json data is invalid, return empty array    if (!check_status($jsondata))   return array();    $LatLng = array(        'lat' => $jsondata["results"][0]["geometry"]["location"]["lat"],        'lng' => $jsondata["results"][0]["geometry"]["location"]["lng"],    );    return $LatLng;}/* * Check if the json data from Google Geo is valid */function check_status($jsondata) {    if ($jsondata["status"] == "OK") return true;    return false;}/**  Print an array*/function d($a) {    echo "<pre>";    print_r($a);    echo "</pre>";}

For sample code of how using the function above, feel free to visit my blog

Yes you can. You would do a request with file_get_contents or curl to a url like this:

http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=1600+Amphitheatre+Parkway,+Mountain+View,+CA&sensor=false

What is returned is a json encoded response. You can parse this into arrays using json_decode.

The documentation page has an example of the what the response may look like, use that to find the data that you need.