How to get geolocation from a UK postal code

Question

I have a PHP script at the moment which allows users to enter a UK postcode.

I was wondering if there was a way I could get their geolocation from the postcode they enter. (Through Google's API or something?)

I have tried http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/index.html but it requires a full address, whereas I only have a postcode.

Help would be appreciated, thanks :) Peter

Answer 1

You could check out the Yahoo PlaceFinder API

Heres an example URL http://where.yahooapis.com/geocode?q=BL12DD&appid=[yourappidhere]

I have used this in the past and found it to be somewhat accurate.

Docs: http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placefinder/

Heres come code

<?php

    $data = fetchPage("http://where.yahooapis.com/geocode?q=BL12DD&appid=%5Byourappidhere%5D&flags=J");
    $yahooData = json_decode($data);

    echo '<pre>'.print_r($yahooData, true).'</pre>';

    echo '<br />Lat: ' . $yahooData->ResultSet->Results[0]->latitude;

     function fetchPage($url){
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
        $result = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
        return $result;
    }

?>