Recursive Geocoding in PHP - php

Question

I am analyzing a relative big amount of coordinates in PHP within a for cycle and I make a reverse geocoding calling the following function:
function getLocation( $coordinates )
{
$url = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?latlng=' . trim($coordinates) . '&sensor=false';
$json = #file_get_contents($url);
$data = json_decode($json);
$status = $data->status;
//print_r ( $data->results[ 0 ]);
if ($status == "OK")
{
return $data->results[ 0 ]->address_components[ 1 ]->long_name . ", " . $data->results[ 0 ]->address_components[ 2 ]->long_name;
}
else
{
return false;
}
}
The problem arised is that quite often Google (logically) answers me back with a null json_array and I don't have the reverse geocoding of each coordinate.
how can I bypass this issue? Do you know any other service?
I saw many libraries to reverse geocode but I would prefer to use them as last resource in order not to make heavier my small project.

Answer 1

Ok, well google will normally give you a reason why it failed. I know from past experience that it will fail if you give it too many in a certain time so hence you need to put sleep(500) or something so you don't overload google.
The docs say that it has a tolerance - of perhaps it's giving you an address but those fields aren't populated. Some debug code would help here.
Equally there is some rules you can add e.g
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?latlng=40.714224,-73.961452&location_type=ROOFTOP&result_type=street_address&key=YOUR_API_KEY
Would limit you results down and may give you a better address.
It's probably a good idea to store any addresses you have.