Objective-C - Search for streets based on user-entered query - objective-c

Question

I want to allow the users to search for a street name and have the results displayed in a UITableView.
For the moment the region is not important, it can be from any region.
I could not find any relevant example in my searches and I don't know if I should use CLLocation or MKLocalSearch.
Based on docs, I should use MKLocalSearch:
Although local search and geocoding are similar, they support
different use cases. Use geocoding when you want to convert between
map coordinates and a structured address, such as an Address Book
address. Use local search when you want to find a set of locations
that match the user’s input.
But I have tried both methods and it gives me only 1 result (even-though there is an NSArray returned.
This is the CLGeocoder approach:
CLGeocoder *geocoding = [[CLGeocoder alloc] init];
[geocoding geocodeAddressString:theTextField.text completionHandler:^(NSArray *placemarks, NSError *error) {
if (error) {
NSLog(#"%#", error);
} else {
NSLog(#"%i", [placemarks count]);
for(CLPlacemark *myStr in placemarks) {
NSLog(#"%#", myStr);
}
}
}];
And this is my MKLocalSearch try:
MKLocalSearchRequest *request = [[MKLocalSearchRequest alloc] init];
request.naturalLanguageQuery = theTextField.text;
request.region = self.region;
localSearch = [[MKLocalSearch alloc] initWithRequest:request];
[localSearch startWithCompletionHandler:^(MKLocalSearchResponse *response, NSError *error){
if (error != nil) {
[[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:NSLocalizedString(#"Map Error",nil)
message:[error localizedDescription]
delegate:nil
cancelButtonTitle:NSLocalizedString(#"OK",nil) otherButtonTitles:nil] show];
return;
}
if ([response.mapItems count] == 0) {
[[[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:NSLocalizedString(#"No Results",nil)
message:nil
delegate:nil
cancelButtonTitle:NSLocalizedString(#"OK",nil) otherButtonTitles:nil] show];
return;
}
self.streets = response;
[self.streetsTableView reloadData];
}];
MKLocalSearch seems to return more than 1 response in some cases, but these are related to places not street names searches.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This is the closest I could get. This involves using google places API Web Service.
Note: You could probably use their Google Maps API, etc. I am sure there are other ways to get this information from the various Google APIs.
NSURL *googlePlacesURL = [NSURL URLWithString:[NSString stringWithFormat:#"https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/autocomplete/json?input=%#&location=%f,%f&sensor=true&key=API_KEY", formattedSearchText, location.coordinate.latitude,
location.coordinate.longitude]];
The response is a JSON object. Convert it to a dictionary.
NSDictionary *response = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:_googlePlacesResponse
options:NSJSONReadingMutableContainers error:&error];
if([[response objectForKey:#"status"] isEqualToString:#"OK"])
{
NSArray *predictions = [response objectForKey:#"predictions"];
for(NSDictionary *prediction in predictions)
{
NSArray *addressTypes = [prediction objectForKey:#"types"];
if([addressTypes containsObject:#"route"])
{
//This search result contains a street name.
//Now get the street name.
NSArray *terms = [prediction objectForKey:#"terms"];
NSDictionary *streetNameKeyValuePair = [terms objectAtIndex:0];
NSLog(#"%#",[streetNameKeyValuePair objectForKey#"value"]);
}
}
}
The possible types seem to be
Route -> Street name
Locality -> City/location name
Political -> State, etc
Geocode -> lat/long available
You could populate the table view with those predictions that ONLY contain route as an address type. This could work.

Answer 2

CLGeocoder simply returns address format.
Slap this in your code and play with the contents of mapitems
MKLocalSearchRequest *request = [MKLocalSearchRequest new];
request.naturalLanguageQuery = #"Pizza";
request.region = MKCoordinateRegionMake(location.coordinate, MKCoordinateSpanMake(.01, .01));
MKLocalSearch *search = [[MKLocalSearch alloc]initWithRequest:request];
[search startWithCompletionHandler:^(MKLocalSearchResponse *response, NSError *error) {
NSArray *mapItems = response.mapItems;
for (MKMapItem *mapItem in mapItems) {
MKPointAnnotation *point = [MKPointAnnotation new];
point.coordinate = mapItem.placemark.coordinate;`
}
}];

Answer 3

The array returned contains mapItems, you can iterate over the array to pull out all the mapItems like this:
myMatchingItems = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
for (MKMapItem *item in response.mapItems){
[myMatchingItems addObject:item];
}
Each mapItem.placemark.thoroughfare contains the Street of the location that was found.