NAME

Geo::GeoNames - Perform geographical queries using GeoNames Web Services

VERSION

Version 1.14

ua

Accessor method to get and set UserAgent object used internally. You can call env_proxy for example, to get the proxy information from environment variables:

$geo_coder->ua()->env_proxy(1);

You can also set your own User-Agent object:

use LWP::UserAgent::Throttled;
$geo_coder->ua(LWP::UserAgent::Throttled->new());

SYNOPSIS

    use Geo::GeoNames;
    my $geo = Geo::GeoNames->new( username => $username );

    # make a query based on placename
    my $result = $geo->search(q => 'Fredrikstad', maxRows => 2);

    # print the first result
    print " Name: " . $result->[0]->{name};
    print " Longitude: " . $result->[0]->{lng};
    print " Lattitude: " . $result->[0]->{lat};

    # Make a query based on postcode
    my $result = $geo->postalcode_search(
            postalcode => "1630", maxRows => 3, style => "FULL"
            );

DESCRIPTION

Before you start, get a free GeoNames account and enable it for access to the free web service:

Get an account

Go to http://www.geonames.org/login
Respond to the email
Login and enable your account for free access

http://www.geonames.org/enablefreewebservice

Provides a perl interface to the webservices found at http://api.geonames.org. That is, given a given placename or postalcode, the module will look it up and return more information (longitude, latitude, etc) for the given placename or postalcode. Wikipedia lookups are also supported. If more than one match is found, a list of locations will be returned.

METHODS

new
```
      $geo = Geo::GeoNames->new( username => '...' )
      $geo = Geo::GeoNames->new( username => '...', url => $url )
```
Constructor for Geo::GeoNames. It returns a reference to an Geo::GeoNames object. You may also pass the url of the webservices to use. The default value is http://api.geonames.org and is the only url, to my knowledge, that provides the services needed by this module. The username parameter is required.
ua( $ua )

With a single argument, set the UserAgent to be used by all API calls and return that UserAgent object. Supports Mojo::UserAgent and LWP::UserAgent derivatives.

With no arguments, return the current UserAgent used.
username( $username )

With a single argument, set the GeoNames username and return that username. With no arguments, return the username.
default_ua

Returns the default UserAgent used a Mojo::UserAgent object that carps on errors.
default_url

Returns http://api.geonames.org.
url( $url )

With a single argument, set the GeoNames url and return that url. With no arguments, return the url.
geocode( $placename )

This method is just an easy access to search. It is the same as saying:
```
      $geo->search( q => $placename );
```

search( arg => $arg )

Searches for information about a placename. Valid names for arg are as follows:

      q               => $placename
      name            => $placename
      name_equals     => $placename
      maxRows         => $maxrows
      startRow        => $startrow
      country         => $countrycode
      continentCode   => $continentcode
      adminCode1      => $admin1
      adminCode2      => $admin2
      adminCode3      => $admin3
      fclass          => $fclass
      featureClass    => $fclass,
      featureCode     => $code
      lang            => $lang
      type            => $type
      style           => $style
      isNameRequired  => $isnamerequired
      tag             => $tag
      name_startsWith => $name_startsWith
      countryBias     => $countryBias
      cities          => $cities
      operator        => $operator
      searchlang      => $searchlang
      charset         => $charset
      fuzzy           => $fuzzy
      north           => $north
      west            => $west
      east            => $east
      south           => $south
      orderby         => $orderby

One, and only one, of q, name, name_equals, or name_startsWith must be supplied to this method.

fclass is deprecated.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export/geonames-search.html

find_nearby_placename( arg => $arg )

Reverse lookup for closest placename to a given coordinate. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat     => $lat
      lng     => $lng
      radius  => $radius
      style   => $style
      maxRows => $maxrows
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough descriptions of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
find_nearest_address(arg => $arg)

Reverse lookup for closest address to a given coordinate. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat => $lat
      lng => $lng
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough descriptions of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/maps/reverse-geocoder.html

US only.
find_nearest_intersection(arg => $arg)

Reverse lookup for closest intersection to a given coordinate. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat => $lat
      lng => $lng
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough descriptions of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/maps/reverse-geocoder.html

US only.
find_nearby_streets(arg => $arg)

Reverse lookup for closest streets to a given coordinate. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat => $lat
      lng => $lng
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough descriptions of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/maps/reverse-geocoder.html

US only.
postalcode_search(arg => $arg)

Searches for information about a postalcode. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      postalcode => $postalcode
      placename  => $placename
      country    => $country
      maxRows    => $maxrows
      style      => $style
```
One, and only one, of postalcode or placename must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
find_nearby_postalcodes(arg => $arg)

Reverse lookup for postalcodes. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat     => $lat
      lng     => $lng
      radius  => $radius
      maxRows => $maxrows
      style   => $style
      country => $country
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
postalcode_country_info

Returns a list of all postalcodes found on GeoNames. This method takes no arguments.
country_info(arg => $arg)

Returns country information. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      country => $country
      lang    => $lang
```
For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
find_nearby_wikipedia(arg => $arg)

Reverse lookup for Wikipedia articles. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat     => $lat
      lng     => $lng
      radius  => $radius
      maxRows => $maxrows
      lang    => $lang
      country => $country
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
find_nearby_wikipediaby_postalcode(arg => $arg)

Reverse lookup for Wikipedia articles. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      postalcode => $postalcode
      country    => $country
      radius     => $radius
      maxRows    => $maxrows
```
Both postalcode and country must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
wikipedia_search(arg => $arg)

Searches for Wikipedia articles. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      q       => $placename
      maxRows => $maxrows
      lang    => $lang
      title   => $title
```
q must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
wikipedia_bounding_box(arg => $arg)

Searches for Wikipedia articles. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      south   => $south
      north   => $north
      east    => $east
      west    => $west
      lang    => $lang
      maxRows => $maxrows
```
south, north, east, and west and must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
cities(arg => $arg)

Returns a list of cities and placenames within the bounding box. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      south   => $south
      north   => $north
      east    => $east
      west    => $west
      lang    => $lang
      maxRows => $maxrows
```
south, north, east, and west and must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
country_code(arg => $arg)

Return the country code for a given point. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat    => $lat
      lng    => $lng
      radius => $radius
      lang   => $lang
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
earthquakes(arg => $arg)

Returns a list of cities and placenames within the bounding box. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      south        => $south
      north        => $north
      east         => $east
      west         => $west
      date         => $date
      minMagnitude => $minmagnitude
      maxRows      => $maxrows
```
south, north, east, and west and must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
find_nearby_weather(arg => $arg)

Return the country code for a given point. Valid names for arg are as follows:
```
      lat => $lat
      lng => $lng
```
Both lat and lng must be supplied to this method.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
get(arg => $arg)

Returns information about a given place based on a geonameId.
```
      geonameId  => $geonameId
      lang       => $lang
      style      => $style (Seems to be ignored, although documented)
```
geonamesId must be supplied to this method. lang and style are optional.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export
hiearchy(arg => $arg)

Returns all GeoNames higher up in the hierarchy of a place based on a geonameId.
```
  geonameId => $geonameId
  style     => $style (Not documented, but seems to be respected)
```
geonamesId must be supplied to this method. style is optional.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see http://www.geonames.org/export/place-hierarchy.html#hierarchy
children(arg => $arg)

Returns the children (admin divisions and populated places) for a given geonameId.
```
  geonameId => $geonameId
  style     => $style (Not documented, but seems to be respected)
```
geonamesId must be supplied to this method. style is optional.

For a thorough description of the arguments, see https://www.geonames.org/export/place-hierarchy.html

RETURNED DATASTRUCTURE

The datastructure returned from methods in this module is an array of hashes. Each array element contains a hash which in turn contains the information about the placename/postalcode.

For example, running the statement

    my $result = $geo->search(
            q => "Fredrikstad", maxRows => 3, style => "FULL"
            );

yields the result:

    $VAR1 = {
            'population' => {},
            'lat' => '59.2166667',
            'elevation' => {},
            'countryCode' => 'NO',
            'adminName1' => "\x{d8}stfold",
            'fclName' => 'city, village,...',
            'adminCode2' => {},
            'lng' => '10.95',
            'geonameId' => '3156529',
            'timezone' => {
                    'dstOffset' => '2.0',
                    'content' => 'Europe/Oslo',
                    'gmtOffset' => '1.0'
                    },
            'fcode' => 'PPL',
            'countryName' => 'Norway',
            'name' => 'Fredrikstad',
            'fcodeName' => 'populated place',
            'alternateNames' => 'Frederikstad,Fredrikstad,Fredrikstad kommun',
            'adminCode1' => '13',
            'adminName2' => {},
            'fcl' => 'P'
            };

The elements in the hashes depends on which style is passed to the method, but will always contain name, lng, and lat except for postalcode_country_info(), find_nearest_address(), find_nearest_intersection(), and find_nearby_streets().

BUGS

Not a bug, but the GeoNames services expects placenames to be UTF-8 encoded, and all data received from the webservices are also UTF-8 encoded. So make sure that strings are encoded/decoded based on the correct encoding.

Please report any bugs found or feature requests through GitHub issues https://github.com/nigelhorne/Geo-GeoNames/issues. or bug-geo-geonamnes at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Geo-GeoNames. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SOURCE AVAILABILITY

The source code for this module is available from Github at https://github.com/nigelhorne/Geo-GeoNames.

AUTHOR

Per Henrik Johansen, <per.henrik.johansen@gmail.com>.

Previously maintained by brian d foy, <brian.d.foy@gmail.com> and Nicolas Mendoza, <mendoza@pvv.ntnu.no>

Maintained by Nigel Horne, <njh at bandsman.co.uk>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This library is available under the Artistic License 2.0.

nigelhorne/Geo-GeoNames