How to Code a Simple Zip Code Locator in PHP
Oct
22
2007
22
2007
That’s all there is to it. I hope this has shown you how easy it is to code a simple zip code locator. Below is the code in it’s entirety, and you can see an example here. 
<html>
<head>
<script type="text/javascript"
src="http://maps.yahooapis.com/v3.5/fl/javascript/apiloader.js?&appid=PASTE YOUR API KEY HERE">
</script>
<style type="text/css">
#mapContainer{
height: 400px;
width: 400px;
border:1px solid #333;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>Enter your 5 digit zip code:</p>
<form name="locate" method="POST"
action="<?=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF']?>">
<input name="zip" maxlength="5" size="6" type="text" />
<input type="submit" value="Find" />
</form>
<?php
// see if our zip code has been posted, and if it is a 5 digit #
if (isset($_POST['zip'])) {
// remember to sanitize your inputs
// this removes whitespace around the data and the next line makes sure its a 5 digit number
$findzip = trim($_POST['zip']);
if (preg_match("#^\d{5}$#",$findzip)) {
// if we have the right kind of data, connect to the database
$conn = mysql_connect('[[localhost]]','[[databse-user]]','[[database-password]]');
// select the database with the tables we created in step 3
mysql_select_db('[[database-name]]',$conn);
// create a query that will select the zip code (if we can't find the user entered zip, we return an error)
$query = "SELECT latitude,longitude,state,city FROM zip_codes WHERE zip=".$findzip." LIMIT 1";
$result = mysql_query($query);
if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) {
// grab the latitude, longitude,state and city from our result
list($flat,$flon,$fstate,$fcity) = mysql_fetch_row($result);
// now get all stores in the same state, or all stores if no states match
// we want to reduce the amount of work the database has to do so we see if a state matches
$query = "SELECT * FROM stores WHERE state='".$fstate."'";
$result = mysql_query($query);
if (mysql_num_rows($result) < 1) {
$query = "SELECT * FROM stores";
$result = mysql_query($query);
}
// now we process the stores to gather their data,
//this result should not be empty, so I was lazy and didn't write an else case
if (mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) {
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
// first put all of the data for this store into an array, with the store id as the key
$storeinfo[$row['id']] = $row;
// get the store zip
$dzip = $row['zip'];
// query for the store's latitude and longitude
$query = "SELECT latitude,longitude FROM zip_codes WHERE zip=".$dzip." LIMIT 1";
$result2 = mysql_query($query);
if (mysql_num_rows($result2) > 0) {
list($dlat,$dlon) = mysql_fetch_row($result2);
// now get the distance from the user entered zip
// this function can be found on the same site as the one where you downloaded the zip codes from
$stores[$row['id']] = calcDist($flat,$flon,$dlat,$dlon);
}
}
}
// compare the distances (by sorting them least to greatest) to find the least
asort($stores);
// now we can display closest store
// optionally you could loop over this to list multiple stores
$store = $storeinfo[key($stores)];
// here is the lazy way to print out the data - I leave the pretty printing up to you
print_r($store);
// we'll need this variable for the Yahoo Maps integration
$maploc = $store['address1'] .", ".$store['city']." ".$store['state']." ".$store['zip'];
?>
<div id="mapContainer"></div>
<script>
// this is the address we want to map (you can list several and it will mark each one)
var addresses = new Array("<?=$maploc?>");
// Create and display Map object at the address with zoom level 3
// Include your application ID.
var map = new Map("mapContainer", "PASTE YOUR API KEY HERE", "<?=$maploc?>", 3);
map.addEventListener(Map.EVENT_INITIALIZE, onMapInit);
map.addEventListener(Map.EVENT_MARKER_GEOCODE_SUCCESS,onMarkerGeocode);
function onMapInit(eventObj) {
map.addTool( new PanTool(), true );
for(var i=0; i<addresses .length; i++) {
// if you did do multiple addresses, then this would have to change some (because it would be the same store each iteration)
var marker = new CustomPOIMarker('<?php echo str_replace("'","\'",$store['company']); ?>', '', '<?=$store['address1']?><br /><?=$store['city']?> <?=$store['state']?>, <?=$store['zip']?>', '0x000000', '0xFFFFFF');
map.addMarkerByAddress( marker, addresses[i] );
}
map.addWidget( new ZoomBarWidget() );
}
function onMarkerGeocode(eventObj) {
var geocodeResponse = eventObj.response;
}
</script>
<?php
}
//if can't find zip return error
else {
printError("The zip code you entered was not found in our database. Please try another one.");
}
} else {
printError("The zip code must be a 5 digit number. Please try again.");
}
} else {
//do nothing
}
// functions
function printError($e)
{
echo "<p class='error'>$e";
}
function calcDist($lat_A, $long_A, $lat_B, $long_B)
{
$distance = sin(deg2rad($lat_A))
* sin(deg2rad($lat_B))
+ cos(deg2rad($lat_A))
* cos(deg2rad($lat_B))
* cos(deg2rad($long_A - $long_B));
$distance = (rad2deg(acos($distance))) * 69.09;
return $distance;
}
?>
</body>
</html>
10 Comments » 23,156 views
Posted in: Programming
Comment by James Ehly
on 22 Oct 2007 at 9:42 am #
Well I just figured out a logical error in the script. If you find by state first then that might not actually be the closest location to you (since there might be a closer location in the state next to you). Just comment out the lines about querying the state first and you should be fine. However, I assume doing this will slow the code down quite a bit if you have a ton of locations to search against. Maybe caching the queries somehow would be in order.
James
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Comment by Internet Television
on 24 Jan 2008 at 4:16 pm #
That’s absolutely beautiful, great work.
Comment by josh
on 01 May 2008 at 8:17 am #
What do i have to do to show more stores?
Comment by James Ehly
on 01 May 2008 at 8:44 am #
A few people have asked me this, so here is the looping code you’ll need.
Find this line and add some code like this…
// now we can display closest store// optionally you could loop over this to list multiple stores
$store = $storeinfo[key($stores)];
print "<p>The web developers closest to: $findzip</p><br>\n";
$maploc = "'You are here','$findzip',";
foreach($stores as $k=>$v) {
$output .= "<h3 style='margin:0;padding:0'><b>".$info[$k]['company']."</b><br>(approx ".round($v)." miles)</h3>";
$output .= "<p style='margin:0 0 10px 0;padding:0'><a href='".$info[$k]['url']."'>".$info[$k]['url']."</a><br>";
$output .= $info[$k]['city']." ".$info[$k]['state'].", ".$info[$k]['zip']."</p>";
$maploc .= "'".$info[$k]['company']."','".$info[$k]['address1']." ".$info[$k]['city']." ".$info[$k]['state']." ".$info[$k]['zip']."',";
}
$maploc = substr($maploc,0,-1);
And here are the changes to the javascript:
<script>// this is the address we want to map (you can list several and it will mark each one)
var addresses = new Array(<?=$maploc?>);
// Create and display Map object at the address with zoom level 3
// Include your application ID.
var map = new Map("mapContainer", "[your api key here]", "<?=$maploc?>",20);
map.addEventListener(Map.EVENT_INITIALIZE, onMapInit);
map.addEventListener(Map.EVENT_MARKER_GEOCODE_SUCCESS,onMarkerGeocode);
function onMapInit(eventObj) {
map.addTool( new PanTool(), true );
for(var i=0; i<addresses.length; i=i+2) {
//alert(addresses[i]);
//alert(addresses[i+1]);
// if you did do multiple addresses, then this would have to change some (because it would be the same store each iteration)
var marker = new CustomPOIMarker(addresses[i], '', addresses[i+1], '0x000000', '0xFFFFFF');
map.addMarkerByAddress( marker, addresses[i+1] );
}
map.addWidget( new ZoomBarWidget() );
}
function onMarkerGeocode(eventObj) {
var geocodeResponse = eventObj.response;
}
</script>
Basically what you are doing is building an array of results and looping over then with the javascript.
Hope this helps. James
Comment by Shan
on 30 Mar 2009 at 10:17 am #
This is awesome… but the multiple part is not working for me…
after I insert the zip I get
The web developers closest to: 11501
‘You are here’,'11501′,’You are here’,'11501′,”,’ ‘,”,’ ‘,”,’
‘Array ( [id] => 2 [name] => test1 [address1] => 450 Hillside Ave [address2] => [city] => New Hyde Park [state] => New York [zip] => 11040 [phone1] => 5551212[website] => http://www.mmaxtra.compavailable => no => Yes [kutbha_hr] => [kutbha_min] => [email] => info@mmaxtra.com )
So I get a blank map and still get one location? Would you happen to know what am I doing wrong?
Comment by Tim
on 19 Jun 2009 at 6:58 pm #
How do you paginate this? I’ve been trying every which way I can and every result is wrong. Once I remove my pagination the results are in the correct order again.
Comment by Tim
on 23 Jun 2009 at 8:45 am #
Thanks for putting this out here!
What do you do for pagination? I got it working (without Yahoo integration, as I don’t need it) and implemented pagination. When I did that, the results were all messed up. I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Do you have an example?
Comment by Blech
on 04 Mar 2010 at 7:49 pm #
I hate to rain on this as it is a nice start but I’ve fought with this code for a deadline I have and unfortunately haven’t been able to get it working after 3 hours of fiddling with different parts of this code… pretty frustrating.
Comment by James Ehly
on 04 Mar 2010 at 10:30 pm #
You must have missed the note at the top:
The old API no longer works. I still haven’t gotten around to making a new one, so the best resource now is going to be the Yahoo Maps API pages. There’s lots of examples there on how the use the new mapping api. Plus I found this great guide just the other day for google maps:
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/articles/phpsqlsearch.html