PHP errors when trying to apply geo location - php

Question

I'm trying to do some geolocating to display certain phone numbers in the header of my WordPress website. Unfortunately when I apply the code below i get the following PHP error:
[17-Sep-2014 19:48:16 UTC] PHP Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty needle in /home/domain/public_html/wp-content/themes/Avada/framework/headers/header-v4.php on line 87
[17-Sep-2014 19:48:16 UTC] PHP Warning: strpos() [function.strpos]: Empty needle in /home/domain/public_html/wp-content/themes/Avada/framework/headers/header-v4.php on line 90
<?php
$ip = $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$url = "http://freegeoip.net/json/" . $ip;
$json = file_get_contents($url);
$data = json_decode($json, TRUE);
$city = print_r($data['city'], true);
$state = print_r($data['region_code'], true);
$kings_orlando = "Altamonte Springs Apopka Casselberry College Park Heathrow Lake Mary Longwood Maitland Orlando Oviedo Windermere Winter Park Winter Springs";
if ((strpos($kings_orlando,$city) !== false) AND ($state == "FL")) {
echo '1-407-270-2112';
}
else {
echo '1-954-753-9436';
}
?>
Not only do I get the error but my footer disappears as well. Can someone tell me what i'm doing wrong?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I'm taking a guess here: You're trying this locally. Hence, your IP address is 127.0.0.1.
For this IP freegeoip.net – obviously – doesn't know a city. You can see this by just looking at the output: https://freegeoip.net/json/127.0.0.1
So you have to expect that $city is simply empty. Catch this problem by doing this:
if (!empty($city) AND (strpos($kings_orlando,$city) !== false) AND ($state == "FL")) {
(Of course, this can also happen with "real" IP addresses – the GeoLite database that freegeoip.net is using is far from complete, especially on a city level.)

Answer 2

Firstly, using this freegeoip.net service is wrong :) (as long as you need it for more than just a country). It's highly inaccurate and often unavailable, but maybe it's just me who had a lot of problems with it even in a small startup-website.
Secondly - using $city = print_r($data['city'], true); is wrong.
You should only do $city = $data['city']; if even that.
Those warnings you get mean that $city variable is empty, which is very possible (see: point 1. of my answer ;). Try other geolocating services or make sure you handle situations, where city is not provided in returned JSON.