Basic ruby blass with parts of an address that can be assembled into a string and geolocated with Google Maps api

locateble.rb

GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY = "something"

# This is a plain old ruby class that assumes someone has give it the
# parts of an address. The end goal is to use Google to geolocate it
# and assign a lat/long
class Locateable
  attr_accessor :street1, :street2, :city, :state, :country
  attr_accessor :latitude, :longitude, :accuracy

  # returns false if google was unable to geolocate the
  # object. returns an array (and sets the objects accessors) of [lat,
  # long, accuracty] if successful.
  def geolocate
    return false unless city and state and country

    begin
      if (response = google_locate) !~ /^200/
        if (response = google_locate("", city, state, country)) !~ /^200/
          if (response = google_locate("", "", state, country)) !~ /^200/
            if (response = google_locate("", "", "", country)) !~ /^200/
              return false
            end
          end
        end
      end

      response, self.accuracy, self.lat, self.long = response.split(",")
      return false if accuracy == "0"
      
    rescue Timeout::Error
      # Google didn't respond, do something to try again later (maybe)
      return false
    end
    [latitude, longitude, accuracy]
  end
  
  protected

  # Actually assemble the structured address into something google
  # searchable and make the http request. You can either pass in all
  # the parts of the address, but it defaults to the object's
  # attributes if they aren't given
  def google_locate(street1 = nil, city = nil, state = nil, country = nil)
    if street1
      street = street1
    else
      street = "#{self.street1}, #{street2}"
    end
    address = "#{street}, #{city || self.city}, #{state || self.state}, #{country || self.country}"
    params = "q=" + CGI.escape(address)
    params += "&output=csv&key=#{GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY}"
    url = URI.parse("http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?#{params}")
    timeout(5) do
      Net::HTTP.get(url)
    end
  end

end