Parse.com Cloudcode, calculate driving distance between two locations

Question

I have a beforeSave function, and one field of the class is a GeoPoint, I want to find the driving distance between the previously available data and the about to be updated data. I understand I need to use some service like Google maps to find the driving distance. But I do not understand how to use a third party js inside the cloud code or call Google directions service with a https request from cloudcode. How do I go about this. Thanks.

Answer 1

The solution was to call the google maps' REST services with a api key from google projects.

This is how my code went.

    var url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?origins="+oldLatitude+","+oldLongitude

        url = url+"&destinations="+newLatitude+","+newLongitude+"&key=YOUR_API_KEY";



   Parse.Cloud.httpRequest({
      url: url,

    }).then(function(httpResponse) {

                var distance = (JSON.parse(httpResponse.text)).rows[0].elements[0].distance.value;




       response.success();
    }, function(err) {
      console.log(err);

                response.success();
    });