Geocode - curl request - convert associative array into xml - php

Question

I'm trying to convert my geocode lat and lng data into XML so that I can use it:
This is an example of the URL that I am using from the googleapi's:
http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=1600%20Amphitheatre%20Parkway,%20Mountain%20View,%20CA&sensor=false
My code so far is:
if (!function_exists('curl_init')){
die('Sorry cURL is not installed!');
}
$c = curl_init();
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($c, CURLOPT_URL, $request_url);
$contents = curl_exec($c);
curl_close($c);
$xml = json_decode( json_encode( simplexml_load_string( $contents ) ), TRUE );
var_dump($xml, $contents, $c); exit();
This is consistently returning false on the $xml, though the content is being passed back.

Answer 1

You don't have to convert json to xml.
Google services by default provides two types of output. one is JSON and other is XML.
In the url you had mentioned replace the letters 'json' with the letters 'xml' so that it will look like that following and it will give you xml output.
http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=1600%20Amphitheatre%20Parkway,%20Mountain%20View,%20CA&sensor=false
Open the above url in a browser and you can see the result in xml.
Here is an excerpt of the sample output i got when i directly gave the url i had mentioned above in the browser.
<GeocodeResponse>
<status>OK</status>
<result>
<type>street_address</type>
<formatted_address>
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
</formatted_address>
<address_component>
So, in your code you can remove the json functions and directly use $xml = simplexml_load_string( $contents )...
...

Answer 2

$xml = json_decode( json_encode( simplexml_load_string( $contents ) ), TRUE );
You're trying to transform JSON data into XML using simplexml_load_string. If you read the manual for simplexml_load_string, you'll see that $contents should be a "well-formed XML string". In your case, $contents is a string representing JSON data.
If you're wanting XML, you should be accessing this part of the Google API instead. The difference between the two links:
http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json
http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml
Example using SimpleXMLElement:
$output = new SimpleXMLElement($contents);
var_dump($output);