Trying to return lat and long from Google Geocode

Question

This is my first time working with a JSON and I am clearly getting something wrong, Im just very unsure what it is.

I have looked up how to parse a simple json, but I think its the deeper levels of a google geocode that may be throwing me off.

Heres how I am trying to obtain my values:

$getJSON = "http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=" . str_replace(" ", "", $_POST['postcode']) . "&sensor=false";
            $contentJSON = file_get_contents($getJSON);
            $Geocode_array = json_decode($contentJSON, true);

            $lat = $Geocode_array[results][address_components][geometry][location][lat];
            $lng = $Geocode_array[results][address_components][geometry][location][lng];

and if required I can post the json code.

Answer 1

Try quoting your array keys. Without the quotes, PHP is assuming those keys are undefined constants. Additionally, you've also not traversed the JSON result quite correctly. Try this:

$lat = $Geocode_array['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lat'];
$lng = $Geocode_array['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lng'];

The Google Maps API gives you multiple results in an array. I'm referencing the first one in the code immediately above (index 0). A helpful thing to do during development is to print associative arrays to the PHP output buffer using print_r(). That's how I figured it out.

print_r($Geocode_array);