How to send a Google Places Search Request with Java

Question

I need to search Goolge Places Pages by long/lat for any banks in the area of 20m. This Google Places Doc describes how to do it with JavaScript. They are using a google.maps.LatLng Object that i don't have in Java.

Does anyone now how to call the Service?

Maybe there is also an Java API for Goolge Places?

Best Regards, Christian.

Edit 1:

I found someone constructing the url like this:

String url = baseUrl + "location=" + lat + "," + lon + "&" +
                 "radius=" + searchRadius + "&" + types + "&" + "sensor=true" +
                 "&" + "key=" + googleAPIKey;

Answer: Edit 2:

I because of the post above i found out how to do it. This is a example how to send the request:

public class GooglePlacesClient
{
    private static final String GOOGLE_API_KEY  = "***";

    private final HttpClient    client          = new DefaultHttpClient();

    public static void main(final String[] args) throws ParseException, IOException, URISyntaxException
    {
        new GooglePlacesClient().performSearch("establishment", 8.6668310, 50.1093060);
    }

    public void performSearch(final String types, final double lon, final double lat) throws ParseException, IOException, URISyntaxException
    {
        final URIBuilder builder = new URIBuilder().setScheme("https").setHost("maps.googleapis.com").setPath("/maps/api/place/search/json");

        builder.addParameter("location", lat + "," + lon);
        builder.addParameter("radius", "5");
        builder.addParameter("types", types);
        builder.addParameter("sensor", "true");
        builder.addParameter("key", GooglePlacesClient.GOOGLE_API_KEY);

        final HttpUriRequest request = new HttpGet(builder.build());

        final HttpResponse execute = this.client.execute(request);

        final String response = EntityUtils.toString(execute.getEntity());

        System.out.println(response);
    }

}

Answer 1

Here's a more complete example (includes JSON parsing and some exception handling) for Places API search, autocomplete, and details. It was written for Android, but can be easily ported for non-Android use (need to include org.json libs and use different logging). The Place class is a simple value object.

package com.example.google.places;

import org.json.JSONArray;
import org.json.JSONException;
import org.json.JSONObject;

import android.util.Log;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.net.URLEncoder;
import java.util.ArrayList;

/**
 * @author saxman
 */
public class PlacesService {
    private static final String LOG_TAG = "ExampleApp";

    private static final String PLACES_API_BASE = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place";

    private static final String TYPE_AUTOCOMPLETE = "/autocomplete";
    private static final String TYPE_DETAILS = "/details";
    private static final String TYPE_SEARCH = "/search";

    private static final String OUT_JSON = "/json";

    // KEY!
    private static final String API_KEY = "YOUR KEY";

    public static ArrayList<Place> autocomplete(String input) {
        ArrayList<Place> resultList = null;

        HttpURLConnection conn = null;
        StringBuilder jsonResults = new StringBuilder();
        try {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(PLACES_API_BASE);
            sb.append(TYPE_AUTOCOMPLETE);
            sb.append(OUT_JSON);
            sb.append("?sensor=false");
            sb.append("&key=" + API_KEY);
            sb.append("&input=" + URLEncoder.encode(input, "utf8"));

            URL url = new URL(sb.toString());
            conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            InputStreamReader in = new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream());

            int read;
            char[] buff = new char[1024];
            while ((read = in.read(buff)) != -1) {
                jsonResults.append(buff, 0, read);
            }
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing Places API URL", e);
            return resultList;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error connecting to Places API", e);
            return resultList;
        } finally {
            if (conn != null) {
                conn.disconnect();
            }
        }

        try {
            // Create a JSON object hierarchy from the results
            JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject(jsonResults.toString());
            JSONArray predsJsonArray = jsonObj.getJSONArray("predictions");

            // Extract the Place descriptions from the results
            resultList = new ArrayList<Place>(predsJsonArray.length());
            for (int i = 0; i < predsJsonArray.length(); i++) {
                Place place = new Place();
                place.reference = predsJsonArray.getJSONObject(i).getString("reference");
                place.name = predsJsonArray.getJSONObject(i).getString("description");
                resultList.add(place);
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing JSON results", e);
        }

        return resultList;
    }

    public static ArrayList<Place> search(String keyword, double lat, double lng, int radius) {
        ArrayList<Place> resultList = null;

        HttpURLConnection conn = null;
        StringBuilder jsonResults = new StringBuilder();
        try {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(PLACES_API_BASE);
            sb.append(TYPE_SEARCH);
            sb.append(OUT_JSON);
            sb.append("?sensor=false");
            sb.append("&key=" + API_KEY);
            sb.append("&keyword=" + URLEncoder.encode(keyword, "utf8"));
            sb.append("&location=" + String.valueOf(lat) + "," + String.valueOf(lng));
            sb.append("&radius=" + String.valueOf(radius));

            URL url = new URL(sb.toString());
            conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            InputStreamReader in = new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream());

            int read;
            char[] buff = new char[1024];
            while ((read = in.read(buff)) != -1) {
                jsonResults.append(buff, 0, read);
            }
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing Places API URL", e);
            return resultList;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error connecting to Places API", e);
            return resultList;
        } finally {
            if (conn != null) {
                conn.disconnect();
            }
        }

        try {
            // Create a JSON object hierarchy from the results
            JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject(jsonResults.toString());
            JSONArray predsJsonArray = jsonObj.getJSONArray("results");

            // Extract the Place descriptions from the results
            resultList = new ArrayList<Place>(predsJsonArray.length());
            for (int i = 0; i < predsJsonArray.length(); i++) {
                Place place = new Place();
                place.reference = predsJsonArray.getJSONObject(i).getString("reference");
                place.name = predsJsonArray.getJSONObject(i).getString("name");
                resultList.add(place);
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing JSON results", e);
        }

        return resultList;
    }

    public static Place details(String reference) {
        HttpURLConnection conn = null;
        StringBuilder jsonResults = new StringBuilder();
        try {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(PLACES_API_BASE);
            sb.append(TYPE_DETAILS);
            sb.append(OUT_JSON);
            sb.append("?sensor=false");
            sb.append("&key=" + API_KEY);
            sb.append("&reference=" + URLEncoder.encode(reference, "utf8"));

            URL url = new URL(sb.toString());
            conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
            InputStreamReader in = new InputStreamReader(conn.getInputStream());

            // Load the results into a StringBuilder
            int read;
            char[] buff = new char[1024];
            while ((read = in.read(buff)) != -1) {
                jsonResults.append(buff, 0, read);
            }
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing Places API URL", e);
            return null;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error connecting to Places API", e);
            return null;
        } finally {
            if (conn != null) {
                conn.disconnect();
            }
        }

        Place place = null;
        try {
            // Create a JSON object hierarchy from the results
            JSONObject jsonObj = new JSONObject(jsonResults.toString()).getJSONObject("result");

            place = new Place();
            place.icon = jsonObj.getString("icon");
            place.name = jsonObj.getString("name");
            place.formatted_address = jsonObj.getString("formatted_address");
            if (jsonObj.has("formatted_phone_number")) {
                place.formatted_phone_number = jsonObj.getString("formatted_phone_number");
            }
        } catch (JSONException e) {
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, "Error processing JSON results", e);
        }

        return place;
    }
}