PHP code for adding new place to Google Places via API

Question

I'm working on integrating Google's Places API into a web app. I've been able to successfully create code to allow users to search for places using the API and to display results in the app, so that's cool.

What I haven't been able to figure out is how to allow users of the app to add new places. Something which Google says is doable. They have some documentation on it here -

https://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/#adding_a_place

But no example code and I'm having some difficulty working out PHP code to implement the add call.

---

This is the code that I've come up with so far. I've replaced my actual API key with {your key} here.

I keep getting a malformed post error -

400. That’s an error. Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request. That’s all we know.

---

<?php

function ProcessCurl($URL, $fieldString){ //Initiate Curl request and send back the result
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADERS, array('Content-Type: application/json'));
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $URL);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, TRUE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, TRUE);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, array('json'=>json_encode($fieldString)));
        $resulta = curl_exec ($ch);
        if (curl_errno($ch)) {
                print curl_error($ch);
        } else {
        curl_close($ch);
        }
        echo $resulta;
    }

$jsonpost = '{
  "location": {
    "lat": -33.8669710,
    "lng": 151.1958750
   },
  "accuracy": 50,
   "name": "Daves Test!",
   "types": ["shoe_store"],
  "language": "en-AU"
}';
 $url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/add/json?sensor=false&key={your key}";

 $results = ProcessCurl ($url, $jsonpost);

 echo $results."<BR>";
?> 

Answer 1

There are a few problems with your code.

First, you'd usinre CURLOPT_HTTPHEADERS when in fact, it's CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER (without the trailing "S"). That line should read:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json'));

Next, Google doesn't want you to pass a parameter name, just a value. The other thing is that the $jsonpost is already JSON so there's no need to call json_encode. The line should read:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fieldString);

For more information, check the Google documentation: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/#adding_a_place.

Your complete code, fixed, tested and working:

<?php

function ProcessCurl($URL, $fieldString){ //Initiate Curl request and send back the result
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Content-Type: application/json'));
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $URL);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, 1);
        //curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $fieldString);
        $resulta = curl_exec ($ch);
        if (curl_errno($ch)) {
                print curl_error($ch);
        } else {
        curl_close($ch);
        }
        echo $resulta;
    }

$jsonpost = '{
  "location": {
    "lat": -33.8669710,
    "lng": 151.1958750
   },
  "accuracy": 50,
   "name": "Daves Test!",
   "types": ["shoe_store"],
  "language": "en-AU"
}';

$url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/add/json?sensor=false&key=";

$results = ProcessCurl ($url, $jsonpost);

echo $results."<BR>";