I would like to return specific places (stores like Target, Macy's, etc.) by location (latitude, longitude).
I have been using the google places api and entering the different stores in the name parameter. The results are inconsistent at best.
Is this the api I should be using to return specific stores by name and proximity? The google places api near by search has only a single name parameter. I would ideally like to search for several specific stores in a single request to the endpoint for performance reasons.
In conclusion
What api should I be using to return specific stores by name and proximity?
The Google Places API is the correct Google API to use; however, as you mentioned it does not support multiple name or keyword parameters. There is an active Places API - Feature Request for this here, please star it if you wish to see it resolved and to be notified of future changes.
Instead of using the name parameter, try using the keyword parameter. The keyword parameter is matched against all available fields, including but not limited to name, type, and address, as well as customer reviews and other third-party content. This can often yield more or better results.
It seems as if the foursquare api does let you search for multiple specific places.
Here is an example url that does the trick:
https://api.foursquare.com/v2/venues/search?ll=34.017717,-118.159335&query=Target Victoria's Secret Macy's &intent=browse&radius=16094&oauth_token=mytoken
g
So I'm abandoning Google Places and going with FourSquare.
Related
I am trying to use the OpenAlex API: https://docs.openalex.org/api
This API provides access to a catalog of scholarly papers, authors, institutions, etc...
It is easy enough to make a query for an institution's information such. Here is an example from the API docs:
https://api.openalex.org/I19820366
I am trying to figure out how to get a specific institution's ID.
In the docs, there is a statement that this ID number is Microsoft Academic Graph's institutional ID: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/microsoft-academic-graph/
But I have been unable to figure out anything in Microsoft Academic Graph either.
How can I find the institutional ID for a specific institution?
I am a beginner, and I also just started to retrieve data from the OpenAlex API. For me, the easiest way was either to use the ROR id or the GRID id, which you can both look up for any institution either here: https://www.grid.ac/ or here: https://ror.org/
Then you use either ROR or GRID-ID as an identifier (https://docs.openalex.org/about-the-data/institution#ids) and that identifier as a filter, as specified in the API documentation.
Be aware, that except for the Institution-ID, that you want to find, all the other institutional IDs, like ROR or GRID, have to be put in your request as a full URL. Take the example of the Johns Hopkins University. It's not enough to put their ROR like this: "00za53h95", you have to put in the API request like that: "https://ror.org/00za53h95" (without the quotes) or else it won't work. In my example, a request could look like this:
https://api.openalex.org/institutions/https://ror.org/00za53h95
This will deliver a nice json file with all the info you need, including the institution's ID in the database. Save the information as a file by using a cURL GET request or just do it via your browser and get the result as a webpage, both works. If you do the latter, you should follow the suggestion of the OpenAlex team and install a browser plugin like JSONVue, that will make the experience of reading the result on your screen so much better.
Hope that helps.
You can use the OpenAlex API to search for the ID like this:
https://api.openalex.org/institutions?filter=display_name.search:University%20of%20Virginia
In addition to Heather's comment, I'd like to add that we can now go to https://explore.openalex.org/ and search for any entity. Start typing "Johns Hopkins University" and you'll get to this page: https://explore.openalex.org/institutions/I145311948 which has all the identifiers (including the openalex id I145311948) and additional information about this institution.
I am trying to get the twitter name, website, and markets for any cryptocurrency listed on coinmarketcap.
For example:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin shows all of the data that I need but how would I parse the data listed on that page to get the twitter name and website associated with bitcoin?
Don't try to parse the data on that page if you are trying to use it in an application. If you are doing it for a one time data collection then maybe that is OK. There is absolutely no guarantee that the format will remain consistent or that the information will even be there tomorrow.
You should try to find an API that gives you the information that you are looking for. An API is a contract that is expected to be honored and therefore is reliable. A quick look at CoinMarketCap's API doesn't appear to have the info you are looking for but maybe another one exists that does.
If you were to parse the HTML you could write a regex for the specific thing you are looking for. For example if you want to get the website you could write a regex that would pick up the pattern:
Website
the capture group ([^"]+) is the website in this example. You could do something like that for every element you want to get.
I am currently evaluating several different APIs in order to get venue information. A key component of any provider is the ability to not just return all venues nearby but tailor the list based on previously entered user preferences.
Foursquare does not allow 'munging' their venue data with other data, like Google's places to create an aggregated service. But can I take Foursquare's venues for a given area, apply some filtering based on user preferences and recommendation engine techniques, and present a modified, personalized version of their information? Do they frown on only using their venue info as a jumping off point, even if attribution on the final results is given?
This customization would be above and beyond using retailer categories, something that can be included in the facebook request. Asking because other services require results presented exactly as returned from the API, including ads.
First, check out the policies at https://developer.foursquare.com/overview/community
We welcome you to use foursquare as your location database. You can associate additional content with our venue data in your system, but you may not combine our database with another database or export it on your own.
I think that they even encourage you to manipulate the data and create creative solutions with it, as long as you do not break their ground rule of not merging it with another database (see the full text at the link).
The API even lets you filter the results according to your needs with the categoryId and intent parameters. For example in our app, we filter out places that have less than 2 unique people checked in, because we assume its faked places.. we do other filtering on the result set as well, but we display only data from from foursquare venues database, and we attribute.
I recently joined a team working on an application that maintains listings with addresses. The user searches, and includes their zipcode, and the application displays the distance to each listing. Currently we use the Google Maps API for this. Reading through questions here on StackOverflow seem to suggest that this is the best way of doing things:
php/mysql zip code proximity search
Search engine by distance
However, while reading through the API documentation, this seems to be expressly forbidden unless we also show a map for each result (and possibly also for each result we filter out, depending on how you read the following statement):
Use of the Distance Matrix API must relate to the display of information on a Google Map; for example, to determine origin-destination pairs that fall within a specific driving time from one another, before requesting and displaying those destinations on a map. Use of the service in an application that doesn't display a Google map is prohibited.
( https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/distancematrix/ )
What's the best way to accomplish this without running afoul of any API terms?
do you consider the Geo::PostalCode module (perl)? It uses maxmind database to calculate distances between locations (and there is bind in different languages).
I've been using the Google Maps Places API to do search a map for the iPhone, like in the Maps app itself. I use a line like this:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/search/json?location=%f,%f&rankby=distance&name=%#&sensor=true&key=%#
using NSString to enter the missing information. However, unlike the Maps app, this search only works for local places and not for postcodes or other information. It would appear that if I want it to accept postcodes, I have to create a geocode request:
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=W1A+1AA&sensor=true
But then of course, this doesn't search place information. Like the Maps app, I want my app to seamlessly return the best results of both.
Before I go ahead and code it so that it uses two separate APIs, is there a better way of doing this? Should I be using a different API that works more like the search in the Maps app?
I've looked into this for something like looking into a specific service, let's say sushi, at a zip code for those who don't want to use location services. Unfortunately, it seems like you have to make two calls, one for geocoding and the other through Google Places to get the locations that are within the radius of the coordinates given in the geocoding call.
See:
Find all parks for a given zipcode with google maps
and
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!msg/google-places-api/P3iDK5kO7OM/Cek4BzeXMA4J