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PHP Web Services

Google Maps API to calculate location distance in PHP

This example shows how to use the Google maps API to calculate distance between two places in PHP

$result = file_get_contents('http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json?origin=Chicago,IL&destination=Raleigh,NC&sensor=false');
$result = json_decode($results);
$distance = $result->routes->legs->distance['text'];
echo $distance // Outputs: "xxx mi"

Making REST requests from PHP

The most simplest way is to use

$data = json_decode(
  file_get_contents(“http://www.w3mentor.com/service.json”)
);

This example won’t work on servers that explicitly disable the URL opening behavior, mostly seen in shared hosting environment.