used to get Lat Long values from Yahoo Maps API on the fly

geocoder.rb

class GetLatLong
require 'open-uri'

attr_reader :latitude
attr_reader :longitude
attr_reader :message
attr_reader :valid

attr_writer :address
attr_writer :state
attr_writer :city
attr_writer :zip

YAHOO_KEY = "redacted"

  def initialize
    @valid=true
  end

  def run
    load_info
  end

  def load_info
    #add plus signs to street and city
    @address=@address.split(" ").collect {|add| "#{add}+"}
    @city=@city.split(" ").collect {|ci| "#{ci}+"}
    #wait a little because YAHOO hates too many subsequent calls TOO QUICKLY
    sleep 1
    xpath = "http://local.yahooapis.com/MapsService/V1/geocode?appid=#{YAHOO_KEY}&street=#{@address}&city=#{@city}&state=#{@state}&zip=#{@zip}"
    uri = URI.parse(xpath)

    begin
      uri.open { |f|
            puts "Fetched document: #{f.base_uri}"
            # Save the response body
            @response = f.read
            }

      search = XmlSimple.xml_in(@response)
      @latitude = search["Result"][0]["Latitude"][0]
      @longitude = search["Result"][0]["Longitude"][0]
      puts "Your results:\n"
    rescue  => ex
      puts "error\n#{ex.message} "
      @valid=false
    end
      "lat:#{@latitude} long:#{@longitude}"
  end

end