Retrieving information from website

Hi

I have a very basic question regd retrieving information from website using
a scripting language:

Basically I am working on the development of a database where a user enters
an address (street, city, state, zipcode). Based on the user input of the
address, I need to dynamically determine the latitude and longitude of that
address from the internet. One such website was :
http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php where we enter the street, city, state
and zipcode etc and the webpage returns the latitude and longitude.

I need to retrieve this information and update the database accordingly. My
question is: Should this retrieval be done using Perl or Php or thru any
other language ? What wd be the best way to incorporate this into my Java
application ? Any help/hints wd be appreciated ! Thanks

"Navodit" <kaushik2@uiuc.edu> wrote:

> Hi
>
> I have a very basic question regd retrieving information from website
> using a scripting language:
>
> Basically I am working on the development of a database where a user
> enters an address (street, city, state, zipcode). Based on the user
> input of the address, I need to dynamically determine the latitude and
> longitude of that address from the internet. One such website was :
> http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php where we enter the street, city,
> state and zipcode etc and the webpage returns the latitude and
> longitude.

How often is this going to happen, and does the owner of the site allow
you to do repeated automatic requests?

> I need to retrieve this information and update the database
> accordingly. My question is: Should this retrieval be done using Perl
> or Php or thru any other language ? What wd be the best way to
> incorporate this into my Java application ? Any help/hints wd be
> appreciated ! Thanks

IMO, if you are using Java, use Java. Otherwise you end up calling a
Perl/PHP program from Java, and processing the result of such a program.

--
John Bokma Freelance software developer
&
Experienced Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

On 07/28/2006 03:47 PM, Navodit wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have a very basic question regd retrieving information
> from website using a scripting language:
>
> Basically I am working on the development of a database
> where a user enters an address (street, city, state,
> zipcode). Based on the user input of the address, I need to
> dynamically determine the latitude and longitude of that
> address from the internet. One such website was :
> http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php where we enter the
> street, city, state and zipcode etc and the webpage returns
> the latitude and longitude.
>
> I need to retrieve this information and update the database
> accordingly. My question is: Should this retrieval be done
> using Perl or Php or thru any other language ? What wd be
> the best way to incorporate this into my Java application ?
> Any help/hints wd be appreciated ! Thanks
>
>

Either PHP or Perl will do. With Perl you'll find the LWP::*
and WWW::Mechanize modules useful.

John Bokma wrote:
> "Navodit" <kaushik2@uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>Hi
>>
>>I have a very basic question regd retrieving information from website
>>using a scripting language:
>>
>>Basically I am working on the development of a database where a user
>>enters an address (street, city, state, zipcode). Based on the user
>>input of the address, I need to dynamically determine the latitude and
>>longitude of that address from the internet. One such website was :
>>http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php where we enter the street, city,
>>state and zipcode etc and the webpage returns the latitude and
>>longitude.
>
>
> How often is this going to happen, and does the owner of the site allow
> you to do repeated automatic requests?
>

http://geocoder.us/ is another source. They take SOAP, and are
Perl-friendly (it's a one-liner using SOAP::Lite, once you have
instantiated the SOAP::Lite object). You need to pay them some money if
you are using it for commercail purposes. Personal use is free.

But I agree with John - if you're using Java use Java, which is
advertised as being wonderful for web apps. Of course the fine print in
the book I read said that if you were doing a "POST" you were on your own.

Tom Wyant