Latest posts for the topic "I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters"

I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

Question : The geocoding webservice does not work with special character like ö or blanks. Answer : The parameters for the webservices have to be utf8 url encoded. If you call the webservice with "New York" you have to url encode "New York", otherwise our service will search for "New" and all other parameters afterwards get lost. "New York" becomes "New%20York" and instead of ö use %C3%B6. URL Encoding replaces spaces with "+" signs, and unsafe ASCII characters with "%" followed by their hex equivalent. Safe characters are defined in RFC2396. They are the 7-bit ASCII alphanumerics and the mark characters "-_.!~*'()". Check the documentation of your programming language to see how url encoding is done in your programming language. Java example : java.net.UrlEncoder("ö","UTF8"); Perl : use URI::Escape; $escapedParameter = uri_escape_utf8("new york"); javascript example : encodeURIComponent("ö") (Note that the standard JavaScript escape and unescape functions operate slightly differently: they encode space as "%20", and treat "+" as a safe character.) Pyton : Nicolas Laurance has written a client library for geonames : http://www.zindep.com/blog-zindep/Geoname-python/

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

zeman — GMT

I'm using utf8_encode in php to encode strings. It works fine most of the time but I'm getting the occasional odd results like the following when searching for Ryūō Japan... http://ws.geonames.org/search?name_equals=Ry%u016B%u014D&country=JP&fcode=ppl&fcode=pplc&fcode=ppla&style=full

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

Only utf8 encoding is not sufficient. It also needs to be url encoded. Something like this : rawurlencode(utf8_encode($input)) The result should look like this : http://dev.geonames.org/search?name_equals=Ry%C5%AB%C5%8D Regards Marc

I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

Kristian — GMT

Hallo

marc wrote:

Perl : use URI::Escape; $escapedParameter = uri_escape("new york");

Point your browser to CPAN uri_escape_utf8() is available for UTF-8 url encoding in newer versions of URI::Escape. It's needed (and nice to use) if the Page where the user typed in the search query uses ISO-8859-1. Regards Kristian EDIT: See also please excuse my bad english...

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

Thanks, Kristian. I have updated the posting.

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

PhilBo — GMT

In Ruby: require 'cgi' CGI.escape('new york')

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

eyeRmonkey — GMT

In PHP, I am using this: Code:

$encoding = mb_detect_encoding($query);
if($encoding == 'UTF-8') {
	$query_escaped = urlencode($query);
} else {
	$query_escaped = urlencode(utf8_encode($query));
}

It's probably not the best way to go about it, but it works whether you are using UTF-8 for your php files themselves or not.

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

eyeRmonkey — GMT

I came up with a better way to accomplish this without using the mbstring library: Code:

if(is_unicode($query)) {
	$query_escaped = urlencode($query);
} else {
	$query_escaped = urlencode(utf8_encode($query));
}

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

bruno bernardino — GMT

Hi, I'm having problems with the ' character (single quote)... The URL I'm getting is http://ws.geonames.org/search?name_equals=Bassin%20d%27Arcachon&country=FR&maxRows=30&style=FULL&lang=fr The GeoName is Bassin d'Arcachon, I'm using php like this: Code:

$xml = simplexml_load_file("http://ws.geonames.org/search?name_equals=".rawurlencode(utf8_encode(stripslashes($loc)))."&country=$cp&maxRows=30&style=FULL&lang=fr");

where $loc is utf8-decoded and rawurldecoded already. Does any of you have this problem? This is the location: http://www.geonames.org/3037252/bassin-d-arcachon.html

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

Hi Bruno This was a problem on our side with the name_equals parameter. I have fixed it. Thanks for having reported it. Cheers Marc

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

jasonj — GMT

i seem to be having a similiar issue with Goiás Brazil http://ws.geonames.org/searchJSON?q=goi%E3%A1s%20brazil&maxRows=10&style=FULL returns no results but http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Goiás+Brazil&country= does.

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

your encoding for the json service does not look correct. It should be "Goi%C3%A1s" instead of "goi%E3%A1s". Best Marc

Prob. for URL Encoding

harshadashende — GMT

I was also facing the same problem for url encoding, but its for VC++. I had written a separate function for the same and now its working. But is there any ready made function or procedure with Geo Names which we can directly apply for url encoding which will work for all types of windows applications?

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

harshadashende — GMT

I am getting XML file as a result of "http://ws.geonames.org/search?name=&country=IN&type=xml" . and in this file, i am getting a city as "Tiruchchirāppalli" . now i want to display this city name as it is, but when i am displaying it, it is shown as "TiruchchirÄppalli" . Is there any solution for this.?

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

You have to use the proper encoding. UTF8 in this case. Marc

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

harshadashende — GMT

Thank you for your reply, but i don't know how to such encoding it in VC++.

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

Javier Reinoso — GMT

I am making a software for get geonames, in flash with visual basic or mdm zinc... When is only the flash, the swf load well the data from geonames.org, but when put in visual basic or mdm zinc, not get the xml answer... Why??? Here are a complete example with the source, the exe - not work -, the fla, the swf: http://www.astrodreams.com/aaa/xmlzincsample.rar I test for download a xml from my web site, and work, but in the exe when attempt to load the data from geonames - for example: http://ws.geonames.org/search?q=london&maxRows=20 -, not work, in the exe the flash not load the xml from geonames and I not know why... Why? Good day!!!

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

eladzaa — GMT

Hi, I'm trying to use the wikipediaSearch webservice with the title parameter on the term 'Musée de Cluny'. I'm using URL encoding: http://ws.geonames.org/wikipediaSearch?&maxRows=1&title=Mus%C3%A9e%20de%20Cluny&username=demo but getting no results. the environment is .NET - CSharp. Wikipedia value is available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mus%C3%A9e_de_Cluny What am I doing wrong? Regards, Elad.

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

marc — GMT

The domain name ws.geonames.org is desupported: http://geonames.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/application-identification-for-free-geonames-web-services/ Please use the domain api.geonames.org and it will work: http://api.geonames.org/wikipediaSearch?&maxRows=1&title=Mus%C3%A9e%20de%20Cluny&username=demo Best Marc

Re:I have problems using the webservice with blanks and special characters

nmfr — GMT

I am trying to cal the search Web Service to search for "Ivory Coast", using the name parameter, in Portuguese (which is "Costa do Marfim") and i am having trouble figuring out whats wrong: Name: costa marfim http://api.geonames.org/searchJSON?maxRows=20&username=frames&featureClass=A&featureClass=P&featureClass=L&orderby=population&name=costa%20marfim&lang=pt&searchlang=pt Result: Code:

{"totalResultsCount":0,"geonames":[]}

Name: costa do marfim http://api.geonames.org/searchJSON?maxRows=20&username=frames&featureClass=A&featureClass=P&featureClass=L&orderby=population&name=costa%20do%20marfim&lang=pt&searchlang=pt Result: Code:

{"totalResultsCount":0,"geonames":[]}

Name: costa marfim (with "+" instead of the "%20") http://api.geonames.org/searchJSON?maxRows=20&username=frames&featureClass=A&featureClass=P&featureClass=L&orderby=population&name=costa+marfim&lang=pt&searchlang=pt Result: Code:

{"totalResultsCount":0,"geonames":[]}

Name: marfim costa http://api.geonames.org/searchJSON?maxRows=20&username=frames&featureClass=A&featureClass=P&featureClass=L&orderby=population&name=marfim%20costa&lang=pt&searchlang=pt Result: Code:

{"totalResultsCount":1,"geonames":[{"adminCode1":"00","lng":"-5.5","geonameId":2287781,"toponymName":"Republic of Côte d’Ivoire","countryId":"2287781","fcl":"A","population":21058798,"countryCode":"CI","name":"Costa do Marfim","fclName":"country, state, region,...","countryName":"Costa do Marfim","fcodeName":"independent political entity","adminName1":"","lat":"8","fcode":"PCLI"}]}

Name: "costa do marfim" http://api.geonames.org/searchJSON?maxRows=20&username=frames&featureClass=A&featureClass=P&featureClass=L&orderby=population&name=%22costa%20do%20marfim%22&lang=pt&searchlang=pt Result: Code:

{"totalResultsCount":1,"geonames":[{"adminCode1":"00","lng":"-5.5","geonameId":2287781,"toponymName":"Republic of Côte d’Ivoire","countryId":"2287781","fcl":"A","population":21058798,"countryCode":"CI","name":"Costa do Marfim","fclName":"country, state, region,...","countryName":"Costa do Marfim","fcodeName":"independent political entity","adminName1":"","lat":"8","fcode":"PCLI"}]}

Is "%20" the correct enconding for white spaces? If so why does name=costa%20marfim return no results? What search is done when the name is enclosed in double quotes "%22costa%20do%20marfim%22"? Does it search for a exact name? Thank in advance for the help.