geocode.rb

require 'nokogiri'
require 'open-uri'
  
def geocode(address_str)
  # html escape address_str
  res = Nokogiri::XML(open("http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=#{address_str}&output=xml&key=&oe=utf-8"))
  status = res.search("code").inner_html
  coords =  res.search("coordinates").inner_html.split(",")[0,2] if status == "200"
  coords << res.search("address").inner_html                     if status == "200"
  return coords
end