Google Maps API exceeds memory limit when hash symbol present in address string

Question

I'm using the GoogleMaps API to get the lat and long for an address, but strangely enough Google Maps causes PHP to run out of memory when a # symbol is present in the string...

The code:

//some attempted addresses: "1234 Memory Lane Suite #1", "4321 Test Dr #4", "#" 
$this->address = htmlentities($_POST['address']);
    $googlemaps = new GoogleMaps(GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY);
    $coordinates = $googlemaps->getCoordinates(
        'UNITED STATES, ' . 
        $this->state . ', ' . 
        $this->city . ', ' .
        $this->address
    );

The error:

Allowed memory size of 268435456 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 19574456 bytes)

When I strip out the pound symbol, everything works correctly. Just kind of curious what is Google's problem with the hash symbol?

Here's the source code of the API, It's pretty short:

class GoogleMaps {

    /**
    * The Google Maps API key holder
    * @var string 
    */
    private $mapApiKey;

    /**
    * Class Constructor
    */
    public function __construct() {
    }

    /**
    * Reads an URL to a string
    * @param string $url The URL to read from
    * @return string The URL content
    */
    private function getURL($url){
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        $tmp = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
        if ($tmp != false){
            return $tmp;
        }
    }

    /**
    * Get Latitude/Longitude/Altitude based on an address
    * @param string $address The address for converting into coordinates
    * @return array An array containing Latitude/Longitude/Altitude data
    */
    public function getCoordinates($address){
        $address = str_replace(' ','+',$address);
        $url = 'http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=' . $address . '&output=xml';
        $data = $this->getURL($url);
        if ($data){
            $xml = new SimpleXMLElement($data);
            $requestCode = $xml->Response->Status->code;
            if ($requestCode == 200){
                //all is ok
                $coords = $xml->Response->Placemark->Point->coordinates;
                $coords = explode(',',$coords);
                if (count($coords) > 1){
                    if (count($coords) == 3){
                        return array('lat' => $coords[1], 'long' => $coords[0], 'alt' => $coords[2]);
                    } else {
                        return array('lat' => $coords[1], 'long' => $coords[0], 'alt' => 0);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        //return default data
        return array('lat' => 0, 'long' => 0, 'alt' => 0);
    }


}; //end class`

Answer 1

Encode the address by using urlencode(), otherwise the output-parameter will be ignored, because google handles the # as an anchor, not as a part of the q-parameter and the response will be json not xml