PHP Zip Code Range and Distance Calculation

Ok - one last thing - this may fix it :
This line :

$lon_range = abs($range/(cos($details[0]) * 69.172));
is taking the cos of of the lat coordinate - should it be the lon coordinate ?

Like this:
$lon_range = abs($range/(cos($details[1]) * 69.172));

I take that back - it has to do when it finds the lon_range.

Most of the time the lon_range is around 1 - in the case of zip code 49017 the range is 35 which is clearly not right!

Any help/suggestions would be great!

Thanks
-Rob

Rob V:

Yes, there are some problems with this script. I don't have time to look into your specific issue, but, I know there have been some gaps and issues with the data in the past (it was a free database that's over 10 years old).

I have started writing a new set of PHP5 classes for zip code ranging where the math is in the MySQL query rather than the PHP. It's much faster but there are still some data issues. I'm hoping that I can find a way to get another free database built out of this years census data.

Can anyone else help Rob with his specific issue?

Great script - but there seems to be some issues with certain zips.

Take for example zip code 49017
Battle Creek MI

If I look for zips within 50 miles of that zip code - I get over 4600 rows returned.
It seems to do w/ an issue of how it calculates the min lon number

Here is what I get when I do 50 miles of that zip :
SELECT * FROM zip_code WHERE lat BETWEEN '41.6683' AND '43.1139' AND lon BETWEEN '-120.6308' AND '-49.7624'

That -120.6308 is just not correct.

Any help would be appreciated.

Really great script Micah.I want to search for a distance from a specific zipcode.

Thanks
Aman

is there anybody that can help me put my site together

is there a way i can just copy and paste the html? if so could you send it to me?

Hey, I have a client with two resellers with zip codes that don't exist in this zip code database. Is there a way to get an updated 2010 version of the zip code /gps data?

Thanks!

I have a client with two dealerships (out of a list of only 104) with zip codes not included in this dump of zip_codes.

99354 & 23533

Is there an updated list?

Hey, your script is great, but its open to A TON of injection attacks. Make sure you are using mysql_real_escape_string() in the least to make sure user input is not riddled with db commands.

Can u please help us with radius search within 2 cities?

great help...!!! Fantastic job.... keep going gentleman...

Great Script

maryam-

define the variable in your php function or code

$city = $zip($city)

Hi is there a demo of this somewhere I can see? I am looking for something where a visitor puts in their zipcode and it brings them to an html page with their closest Agent.. Would this work for that? If not can you or anyone recommend something to accomplish? This seems flexible enough to do what I am looking for but I am not well versed in PHP. Thank You Micah :)

Drew

Maryam, the sql code I downloaded had cities.

Anybody found a free source of Canadian postal codes yet?

Here you go Maryam http://www.greatdata.com/zip-code-database.htm Most of the good ones must be purchased and cost about 100 bucks.

Thank you for this script Micah saved me hours of time!!

Thanks, that is a great PHP script. There is just a problem, that I want to search for a

distance from a city not specific zipcode. I need the database of Us cities longitude and latitude and I couldn't find it.

I will apprecite if anybody give me a clue.

Thanks

Has anyone been able to do a reverse zip code lookup ?
I need to be able to lookup a "city name, state" and get a zip code that corresponds to that location. Typical lookup on google returns a list of zip codes but even jus the first one would suffice. I have been searching the internet for a while now and can't find a usefull script that does that .

This thing is amazing!

I ran into a couple of bugs here and there, nothing major that I wasnt able to fix myself. But the only thing that really is holding me back from being able to use this is database updates. Theres a bunch of new zipcodes in the USPS and those need to also be included. Its not something I can really expect Micah to try to keep up on his own, so if ANYONE has a link to an up to date database that can be imported into MySql, I think it would be beneficial to everyone.

Hello to you all:

Can someone help me on using the get_distance method. I would like to use it by entering only on zipcode in the the html form, and the second zip code would come from an array of zipccodes. This array of zip codes is the answer from the get_zips_in_range(); method. That is, the user inputs the a zip code and the distance in miles, and the result would be the range of zip codes within that distance as well as the distance from each zip code in from get_zips_in_range() to the zip code the user entered.

In other words, how can I use the get_distance method with the latitude, longitude from the database, a range of zip codes from the get_zips_in_range method, a zip code entered by the user, and the distance entered by the user as well.

Thanks.

Alright... I just slipped in small error statements to find out where the get_zips_in_range function might be getting stuck. Here are the places:

Where is first starts:

$details = $this->get_zip_point($zip); // base zip details
if ($details == false) {
$this->last_error = "There is no Zip!";
return false;
}

And then at the end to see if the $return array is empty:

if (empty($return)) {
$this->last_error = "The Array is Empty!";
return false;
}
return $return;

When I reload demo.php, the "The Array is Empty!" error pops up now instead of it being blank. Why would $return be empty? I've tried a range of 100 miles. I've even tried hard wiring the zip code and the range into the equations. Any suggestions?

Hi I am new to php and mysql. I build my websites using Drupal does anyone know how I can implement this with drupal.

I need to be able to find the distance using a search with a dropdown box saying say Bricklayer, Builder, Plumber etc and the user inputs there postcode. this will give the result of there nearest trade..

If someone helps I will be very greatfull..

Thanks

Robert

Great app Micah! There are other similar installable apps on the web which didn't work too well...but yours did (v1.2.0). Awesome work!

Great script that provided me with a great platform for learning about geocoding and radius search requirements.

I have implemented with both UK and US sites...

I have also extended the script (as per some of the comments above) to use google to update the information on the fly as searches are performed. This gives me the best of both worlds...

Fast local Data, No need to update...

Hey,

I will like to know if you can customize the script to enable a search of a place, say, Archdale South Carolina USA, and then do an advance search within the results displayed to further search for nearby places in the database say 5 miles around Archdale South Carolina USA search results...that is search with a search result. If you can, I will like to make a sizeable donation. Thank you.

Obinna

Thanks a lot. Very helpful tool.

Hi,

Dears i have implement this script to my website but my requirement is that i want to find zip codes between two ranges of miles distance mean let say distance between 10 to 20 miles.
The current script is working for only one distance range.
How i can do it help me please.
I am waiting for your response.
It is a great script and nice effort by the developer.

What an elegant script! I can't tell you how much time you've saved me.

Hi, looks promising... where can we see it live? thnaks

Wow after a lot of search in google I finally found the perfect scripts I was looking for. I need to show business which are within few miles of a particular zip code. I really liked the alogorithm you have used. Thanks dude for the script, this is really a time saver.

is there any code for calculating distance between latitutes and longitudes? (geo code)
if anyone know, please let me know.
thanks.

I love you.

Thanks for the great script! Is there a method to sort the following:?
$miles = $z->get_distance($zip1, $zip2)
echo 'Company: '.$row['mycompany'].' is '. $miles .' away from '.$zip1.'';

BTW
This saved me days

hey Micah Carrick, thanks for the post. however do you know where i can get access to a data base that uses actual road distance between two zip codes as with google maps? thanks

Have you considered updating this from mysql to mysqli?

Did anyone get this code to function as a store locator? I'm confused as to which code will help me get my goal solved.

Sincerly,
Stephanie :P

Nevermind what I said up above. It turned out that even though I double checked my MySQL installation, I overlooked a couple settings. Triple checking caught it.

Party time.

I'm having a problem. I'm using it in a Drupal website and modified the code to use Drupal's database abstraction at access the zip_code table. That shouldn't affect the relevant code, but now I get this error:

Fatal error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in /home/content/m/l/a/mlamberth/html/drupal/sites/all/modules/homeform/zipcode.class.php on line 176

Line 176 is this:

$lon_range = abs($range/(cos($details[0]) * 69.172));

I have very little OO experience and I'm using php 5. Any ideas?

Thank you for this class. Very useful.

Just ran into an interesting problem...

When I was trying to run get_zips_in_range(); with a 50 mile radius in a dense metropolitan are (take Houston's 77008 for instance) it fails to come back with an array. Actually, the largest radius I could get with 77008 is 11 miles.

I'm working on figuring out the problem and a possible solution, but if anyone has run into this before, I'd love for a little hint or two on getting this functional!

Thanks!

Thanks! I had downloaded a few others before this and they didn't cut it. Yours worked as described. It is well documented on this site. And, basically, it just works which is what you want. I've created this new crowd sourced shopping list creator called SLIRM and it really needed the ability locate stores by zip code. I couldn't have done it with out your help.

Thanks and when I get some cash I'll send you a fat donation.

Donation sent!

Thank you so much for this! Saved me a bunch of time and money :)

This code really helped me simplify my store locator query. Rather than query all of the zip codes for a radius, I first queried the initial zip entered for it's lat and lon, then queried it against my stores table that I entered the lat and long for each. This sped up the query since I only have 1400 stores. There was no need to do a search for zip codes that were not included in my stores table.

Great class. You should have someone update the Zip Code sql soon though, the united states government just added a bunch of new zip codes into existing areas. the change comes into effect near the start of 2009

Just downloaded and giving it a run. Looks great, thanks for all the notes!

Thanks for the script Micah!!!

I'm trying to do a select based on the zip codes that are returned, however, the $key variable is changed every time the value is returned and ends up being only the last value returned. Is there a way to stick this into an array so I can read all the values and do a select based upon all values? For example:

1. user enters a zip code and distance and submits (have this working)
2. user is returned all zip codes in range
3. SELECT * from Table WHERE $clientlocation = $anyzipreturned

Thanks!
James

http://www.weberdev.com/get_example-4131.html

I did some benchmarking measuring time between a PHP script + MySQL to calculate proximity and implementing proximity search via MySQL only (see Jack's comment above or http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=87134&topic=&ctx=sibling).

With the MySQL only way, you take an initial performance hit due to the query not being cached yet. The first time averages about 0.400 seconds. Whereas the initial query the PHP way is only about 0.100 seconds.

However, once the query is cached (for newbies, MySQL does this automatically) the MySQL only way is slightly faster than the PHP calculation, ~0.0007 sec and ~0.0009 respectively. BTW, changing the zipcode or range results in a new uncached query.

Since the MySQL only way is also more accurate than the PHP+MySQL way, I'd say go with the MySQL only way.

Note: Benchmarks performed with PHP Version 5.2.4 and MySQL version 5.0.51a on a minimal load server. Performance may be different on a high load server.

Hi Micah,

Thanks a bunch for this great app.Just left you a donation.

Michael

Micah,

How do I implement this program? I'm attempting to calculate distances from each line of my spreadsheet. I currently have about 6,600 addresses so therefore would like to obtain 1 match for each unit, roughly 45.6 million outputs to rank by distance. Or I can do a smaller data load, by state or such?

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks

How can I configure the script to accept mileage from Washington to California? It looks like it will only do about 50 miles as of now.

Roman,

You should be able to do the first by simply looking in a 25 mile radius.

The second would be to pull a query which would be NOT IN the first query.

In other words pull a query on the 50 mile radius and then remove from that list anything less than 25 miles, by having the query NOT IN a 25 mile query.

The zip file only contains the SQL script...where is the PHP file/files?

Hi,

My requirement as below
e.g. I have post CH64 and i want to find the postcodes within 10miles from CH64 (redius).

Is it possible with one formula?

Something is wrong with your script: When people search for members located with 5 miles, I get 0 results. When I search for members located within 10 miles, I get members located within 4 miles, etc. For some reason, the search radius only works if it is 2 or 3 miles beyond whatever you're searching for...I have it set to use miles, so I'm not sure whta the problem is.

ok... question.. i would like to know how to ammend the code to include.. distances from 0-25 miles and 25-50 miles.. how would i do that?

since it doesn't like "less than" symbol

SELECT id, ( 3959 * acos( cos( radians( $latitude ) ) * cos( radians( lat ) ) * cos( radians( lon ) - radians( $longitude ) ) + sin( radians( $latitude ) ) * sin( radians( lat ) ) ) ) AS distance
FROM zip_code
HAVING distance (less than symbol) 25
ORDER BY distance
LIMIT 0 , 20;

Donny Lairson example above got me digging. I could not figure out how to implement it at first. for closest 20 results within 25 miles of location (45.1539, -93.1425)

$latitude= 45.1539;
$longitude= -93.1425;

SELECT id, ( 3959 * acos( cos( radians( $latitude ) ) * cos( radians( lat ) ) * cos( radians( lon ) - radians( $longitude ) ) + sin( radians( $latitude ) ) * sin( radians( lat ) ) ) ) AS distance
FROM zip_code
HAVING distance

Hi Micah, great job.
I need to know if there is a newer database, how often I need to update and from where can I obtain such update.
Thanks in advance.

I haven't tried the script yet but I found interesting stuff for canadians : http://www.populardata.com/downloads.html

Hi Greate script it reduced my headache very much because I had got very irritated due to this functionality
Thanks once again

hai great script thanks a lot

Micah,

This script is excellent and wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your efforts. One day when I am capable of writing sound classes I hope to give back to the coding community as well - pay it forward!

If you add this code to your database schema SQL, it will be faster:

create index lat_idx on zip_code(lat);
create index lon_idx on zip_code(lon);

Donny,
Could you explain your sql query and what exactly it replaces and/or how to use it? Does it do the range calculation, the distance calculation or both? What are the constants 3959, 37 and -122?

Chad with the code i posted right above yours. Drop this database and geo encode your informatin and use the sql query. its lightning fast and eliminates the need for all these scripts. Not that this wasn't brilliant at the time but there is just a better way.

anyone help get this thing working, its like the last piece of a puzzle to get the locator operational.

Here is the complete code:







require_once('zipcode.class.php');("phpsqlsearch_dbinfo.php");
require_once('zipcode.class.php');("zipcode.class.php");
$outstanding = echo "$zip1 is $miles miles from $zip2";
function calculate() {
$z = new zipcode_class;
$miles = $z->get_distance($zip1, $zip2);
}
{
if ($miles === false) echo 'Error: '.$z->last_error;
else $outstanding
}




Your Zipcode:   
Supply Zipcode:   

Just found this cause I was having so much trouble with the range finding function.

Mysql will do this type of search for you directly.

SELECT id, ( 3959 * acos( cos( radians(37) ) * cos( radians( lat ) ) * cos( radians( lon ) - radians(-122) ) + sin( radians(37) ) * sin( radians( lat ) ) ) ) AS distance FROM city_location HAVING distance

function get_zip_point($zip) {

// This function pulls just the lattitude and longitude from the
// database for a given zip code.

$sql = "SELECT lat, lon from city_location WHERE zip_code ='$zip' limit 1";

Added the Limit 1 to this sql statement this prevents mysql from continue to search for more like it when we only needed one set of lat and lon from the db for another function.

Slight speed increase.

One other thing I was thinking about was adding an XML page write function to the zips in range. The math portion of this is terrible on high volume servers and once its done once storing an XML of the data from the db to just pull the hardfile xml would be much much faster. Loading data into a memory table for page work is uber fast compared to redoing the math.

Could u apply this to an auto search script for me and teach me how you did it by me viewing the files with you over the phone or using a confence program ? If so what would u charge me for that? and when could we get started if yes? how long do u think it would take to show me. I want to be able to know how this worked when applied to listings in database when using search form n such, thanks Lj

Not sure if anyone caught this yet, but when calling a function that passes zipcodes, the zips should be enclosed in single quotes. This will enable lookups of zips that start or end with zeros. Without the quotes, I got a weird error telling me it couldn't find info for a zip string that I had not entered. Great script nonetheless!

FYI, i have it implemented just fine now.

Thanks again for the great script.

I have the "up to today" zip code date for the US and Canada. When i say up to date.....it even has the correct cords for all the new zips and zip code moves that was done late last year.....all up to dat lat and long.

Here is the trade....I have a real large database....30 million records...and i want to split it into 999 exact databases, based on the first 3 digits of the zip code. Now i can split servers, backups alot easier with smaler databases.

Seems that the easiest way would be a fast zip code module, that calculates, and searches multiple databases based on the result. By using 3 digits, it really would only search 2 or 3.

Just for the record....we own these files....they were not scarfed somewhere. We bought 20 databases, and did a compare, then a manual lookup.

I really need the help with this.

After dozens of tests, maybe i have not implemented this correctly in my application, but sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. That's the best way to describe it. It actually works sometimes, and not others. I do have my own dedicated server, so i don't think it's a server problem.

Not sure where to go from here.

Thank you for this excellent Class. I will be trying to update the data with the 2006 data set that I have found on the web. I will post a mysql dump (haha!) for everyone there. Please check back soon.

This is great script!

Thanks to Chad (2 posts before mine) i was getting an error before i added:

$z = new zipcode_class;

That fixed everything!

Where can I get the most recent ZIP data? It's not really obvious where to get it on the USPS site - and search doesn't help.

Also, does anyone have any suggestions about making this compatible with Mexican Postal codes? I'd like someone to be able to do a search for a Texas ZIP, that would also return results from Mexican postal codes (which follow the same 5 digit convention as US ZIP codes)

Trying to set up a distance calculator where a person selects a location and then enters their zip code and the distance calculator spits out the distance. I'm stuck. uploaded is what i believe is needed for the basic premise to work, but it isn't. sos. mayday. HELLLLLLLP.









Zip Code Range and Distance Calculation Demo

BODY, P { font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; }
H3 { font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14pt; }









Sacramento, CA
Colorado Springs, CO
Denver, CO
Berlin, CT
Jacksonville, FL
Orlando, FL
Atlanta, GA
Boise, ID
Central Chicago, IL
Chicago, IL
Elgin, IL
Woodridge, IL
Indianapolis, IN
Merrillville, IN
Baltimore, MD
Frederick, MD
Washington DC, MD
Detroit, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
Southgate, MI
Westland, MI
Minneapolis, MN
Springfield, MO
St. Louis, MO
Albany, NY
Buffalo, NY
Long Island, NY
Niagara Falls, NY
Syracuse, NY
Charlotte, NC
Greensboro, NC
Akron, OH
Canton, OH
Cincinnati, OH
Columbus, OH
E. Cleveland, OH
Mentor, OH
W. Cleveland, OH
Portland, OR
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Greer, SC
Rapid City, SD
Knoxville, TN
Nashville, TN
Arlington, TX
Ogden, UT
Provo, UT
Salt Lake City, UT
Newport News, VA
N. Virginia, VA
Seattle, WA
Spokane, WA
Milwaukee, WI


Enter your zip code




function calculate() {
$z = new zipcode_class;
$miles = $z->get_distance($value, &zip);
}
{
if ($miles === false) echo 'Error: '.$z->last_error;
else echo "Zip code <b>value</b> is <b>$miles</b> miles away from <b>&amp;zip</b>.";
}

Excellent script! Like others here, I hope to use it to build a proximity search application. I'm wondering though, if its possible to call the get_zip_details function within a for loop that uses get_zips_in_range? And if so, what would the syntax to do that?

I tried using a for loop within a for loop to no avail.

If I am able to do this, then the proximity search and details about each are accomplished all in one shot.

I am, of course, planning on modifying the script to suit my needs, but if I could figure a way to pull the details of each while going through the proximity search, that would be great!

I m getting error when am find the range of zip code 96006. can any one help me out that why i m faceing this error ? n how can i slove it

I have integrated this script into an open source script I am developing called Open Auto Classifieds http://openautoclassifieds.com and this is a very helpful script and just wanted to say thank you!

So, how did I adapt it as a club finder....

As the routine is designed, the results from a MySQL query is returned as Zip Code, Latitude, and Longitude. If you geocode every address in the club database with a latitude and longitude, you simply point the routine to search the club table rather than the zip code table and return the club numbers based upon the latitude/longitude results. The initial geocoding can be done through Google Maps API.

So, for find-a-club, the programming steps are:
1. Get the address and range of seach (I limit mine to 99 miles).
2. Parse the address through Google Maps to return the latitude and longitude.
3. Plug in the latitude and longitude into a modified version if Micah's routine to retrieve the club numbers and mileage.
4. Take the club numbers and pull up the results.

Thanks, Micah!

Hey Micah, this is great work.

Btw, Google has posted a tutorial on how to create a store finder using their map API...maybe this helps someone here: http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=87134&amp;topic=&amp;ctx=sibling

-Mark

hello I'm new to php, I'm trying to make a function that will allow users to calculate distance between two zip codes and based on the miles give a dollar value. I have the database ready I just need to get this form to work. Thank you for you Time.

Hey Micah. Great work.
I've integrated your code into my site.. http://www.SpeedyWord.com/

Hi - Great Work!!

I've converted the SQL so that it works for PostgreSQL, Drop me a line if you want me to ZIP the SQL files and email them to you.

Max

In the problem Matt was having with the 0 rows, the elseif in get_zip_point() should be:

} elseif (mysql_num_rows($r)==0) {

not:

} elseif (!$row) {


Because $row can't be set until the else section, so it's always going to fail in the elseif check.


Also, similarly to sam sen's problem, I still haven't figured out an efficient way to search for the zips in the master zip_code table (to get lat/long and zips in range), then marry that data with a store location table's zip codes -- and still sort by the mileage. I can build an SQL statement on the fly with the initial returned range like "select * from stores where zip IN ('12345', '12321', '12333', '12367')", then display the result and miles with something like:

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($stores_query))
{
echo $row[store_name] .' - '. echo $zips[$row['store_zip']] .' miles away';
}


Adding an "order by" won't really help because if someone searches for '12317', but '12314' and '12315' are in range, ordering by zip will display the other zips before the one the user actually searched for.

It probably would work with a subselect (customizing queries in the class file) but I'm NOT working with mysql 4.1 -- so I can't test this. Anyone that has a solution, please post. I'd appreciate some ideas.

Lovely work and a very usefull class ... converted to my own database and used for UK postcode database ... Cheers

Whoops, looks like wordpress parsed out half my code. Shoot me an email for the correct version.

Hi Micah,

This is some awesome code and I've found it really useful for a project I've been working on recently. However, I found a bug in the get_zips_in_range function that's going to throw off the accuracy of the results. Your code uses:
$lat_range = $range/69.172;
$lon_range = abs($range/(cos($details[0]) * 69.172));
I was doing the math to make sure things seemed fine, as I wanted to wrap my head around the calculations. Everything seemed fine until I hit the cosine in the $lon_range calculation - PHP's cos() function expects a value in radians, but it's receiving a value in degrees. The other functions use the deg2rad() function to correct this, but not here. I just wanted to let you know since it can produce results that include either a pretty accurate longitude range or something wildly inaccurate due to the cyclical nature of cosine. Just wrap $details[0] in deg2rad() and the problem goes away, as far as I can tell.

I confirmed things with this snippet:
$range = 5;
echo 'With deg2rad: ';
for ($lat = -89; $lat ";
}

echo 'With<b>out</b> deg2rad:';
for ($lat = -89; $lat ";
}

You can see that without the deg2rad function, the longitude range doesn't change if you increase the latitude by 2pi degrees, which is of course a full wave of cosine in radians. Switch the 2*M_PI to 5 or something just to show how it bounces all over the place w/out deg2rad but goes from narrow to wide to narrow ranges with.

I know I wouldn't have gotten where I had without finding your code, so thanks a ton for offering it up. I'd feel bad not giving back a bit, and expect a donation once the site is up and running :)

Regards,
Eric

Can your script work with social engine?

http://www.socialengine.net

I have been running this script for some time now. Its one of the best I have found out there. Thanks for maintaining this Micah.

Zip1












above is my form code, when i hit submit it should pass zip1 to the method below

echo 'A sample getting all the zip codes withing a range: 2 miles from '.$_POST['zip1'].'';

$zips = $z-&gt;get_zips_in_range('zip1', 2, _ZIPS_SORT_BY_DISTANCE_ASC, true);


if ($zips === false) echo 'Error: '.$z-&gt;last_error;
else {

foreach ($zips as $key =&gt; $value) {
echo "Zip code <b>$key</b> is <b>$value</b> miles away from <b>".$_POST['zip1']"</b>.";
}


is this correct?

cheers
nate

it is used in the demo.php file u get with the class.....

$zips=$z-&gt;get_zips_in_range($zip, $range, $sort, $include_base) where $zip is a var from your

html form

so your form should look something like this:

i think u use the method "get_zips_in_range($zip,$range,$sort, $include_base)" shown above...
i too am trying to get the closest location from the var $zip from the input of the form...
i guess u need to input range as well, or predefine somehow
hoep this helps i am noob lol 8^p

Hi,
Can some one please show me how I can include this in a simple form to calculat distance between two zip codes, thanks.

Moody

This is an interesting little snippet but I think you could improve it if you get rid of the database requirement and add a mashup option. You could look at my store locator for an example of how that type of implementation would go. I once had a requirement of using a zipcode DB also but I soon found that people were complaining of zip data being out of date. So rather than updating the zips DB every few months, I decided to let someone else do that and used some geocoders instead (Yahoo and Google Maps for example). Something like this would have been nice when I first started coding my locator.

Mark or Micah, would you be so kind as to share how you modded the script for the club search?! That would be amazing!

This is an excellent script. I ended up adapting it as a "Find A Club" script for District 39 Toastmasters since the core of the code is finding all matches by latitude/longitude (See www.district39.org/findclub , although the lookup is restricted to Northern California/Western Nevada clubs). I did change the lat/lon datatypes from FLOAT to DOUBLE for accuracy.

As for sources of free zip codes that are up to date, see http://geocoder.ibegin.com/downloads.php . You may need to apply PHP string fuctions so that it isn't all caps. Not aware of a source for Canada ZIP codes that are FREE.

incredible...that's about all i can say. you have saved me TONS of time. I've gotta be honest, I usually don't leave comments but im just blown away by the script and had to say something. thanks a lot

how can i creat the form that will work with this data base !

The database included in the zip is the most recent one I have.

Is there an update to the zip code database available?

Rather than downloand and install, I'd like to run a query for zips 40 miles in radius from 21030 and have a list of zips returned. If anyone has this script online on an accessible webserver, can you please post a URL? Sounds like a wonderful scrip!
Thanks,
Rich

The download includes a free US database. However, it might not be entirely up to date--though I am using it on a commercial site with no problems to date. Whenever a change is found/needed and I am notified, I add it to the database.

I see people asking about non-US databases, but is there a free up to date US zip code database that can downloaded somewhere?

I don't know of any free databases other than the US one. Often times the data is available (though perhaps as text file or other obscure method) through a government agency website.

Hi!

Could anyone please suggest me how to set up a similar database for Italian ZIP (CAP) codes?

Thank you!

Bye bye

Davide

Wow, this looks great. I'm going to try it out and if it works I'll be back to give you a donation. It looked like I might have to pay $50 for this solution elsewhere. Nice that others also contributed some performance boosters (based on your versions). I'm psyched!

Micha - Awesome script! Just real quick, I'm going to point you to a post I made on a php developer forum. I was able to turn your script into a dealer locater type thing where it fetches records from a db table based on the zipcodes it found within X miles from a zipcode you enter. The only remaining issue I have is sorting the output by miles. I know your script does this by default but I took it a step further and grabbed information from a mysql table.

If you can just briefly look at the code (it's not long) and give me some advice, I would appreciate it. I am not asking you to rewrite it for me, just some tips or advice so i can figure out where to go from here.


http://forums.devshed.com/php-development-5/need-to-sort-output-by-distance-481694.html

Right. I noticed that as well. I'm going to make that little change and re-upload the file.

Oh dear... time for me to put on the idiot hat I think!

Thank you for your help... you were right about one thing... 0 rows were being returned... but not because of any problems with SQL or coding... there were simply none in a 2 mile range!

If you add the following to the code in get_zips_in_range then it will let you know there were 0 in range:

if (!$r) { // sql error

$this-&gt;last_error = mysql_error();
return false;

} elseif (mysql_num_rows($r)==0) {

$this-&gt;last_error = "There were 0 zips within range";

} else {

Thanks for all your help... and i'll say it again, great script!

Make sure the SQL in get_zip_point() as well as get_zips_in_range() matches your table column names. Also make sure that the order of the column names in the SQL are the same as my original ones since I'm using the array indexes and not their keys.

Looking at it very quickly, I think maybe 0 rows are returned? Try changing the get_zip_point() method from this:

if (!$r) {
$this->last_error = mysql_error();
return false;
} else {
$row = mysql_fetch_array($r);
mysql_free_result($r);
return $row;
}

to this:

if (!$r) {
$this->last_error = mysql_error();
return false;
} elseif (!$row) {
$this->last_error = "Zip code $zip was not found in the database.";
return false;
} else {
$row = mysql_fetch_array($r);
mysql_free_result($r);
return $row;
}

Hi,

Sorry, I should have said that already have a database full of UK postcodes along with latitudes and longitudes. In fact with no changes your class calculates the distance between postcodes fine... however it errors when trying to find those codes within a radius.

In order to get it to work as far as i have, i simply took your demo.php file and changed the static zip_codes for postcodes in my DB. So literally with only changing those i have the first part working, i just can't see why the codes within a range isn't. All it comes up with is "Error:" but no actual error message.

Any help you could give would be most appreciated. My first thoughts were that you might be performing some kind of validation on the zip_codes, in which case postcodes would fail... but as the distance between codes works i can't see how this would be the case. Below is an entry from my DB:

postcode x y lattitude longitude
AB10 392900 804900 57.135 -2.117

I have obviously changed the SQL to match my tables. The X and Y values aren't used at all... they just came with the data.

Thanks for your help

Jonathan: I don't have time to get into the details now, but when I have time I'll try to dig up an example of using the script as a store locator.

Matt: the script uses a database populated with US zip codes. For UK postal codes, you would need to obtain data including at least the postal code, latitude, and longitude. I'm not sure if any such database exists for free.

Great script! I'm trying to loop through results passed by a URL variable

i tried working with the get_zips_in_range.....

get_zips_in_range(''.$_GET['zip'].'', $_GET['miles'], _ZIPS_SORT_BY_DISTANCE_ASC, true);
{
foreach ($zips as $key =&gt; $value) {
echo "<b>$key</b> is <b>$value</b> miles away</b>.";
}
}
?&gt;




And

get_zip_details('$zips');

if ($details === false) echo 'Error: '.$z-&gt;last_error;
else {
foreach ($details as $key =&gt; $value) {
$key = str_replace('_',' ',$key);
$key = ucwords($key);
echo "$key:&nbsp;$value";
}
}
?&gt;

and ideas (basically trying to do a store locator off of your script

Hi,

Is there anything special that needs to be done to the script to make it work for English postcodes?

The format of a typical english postcode is either AB10 1XL or AB1 1XL.

Great script BTW... if I can get it working for England it will ahve saved me a HUGE amount of time ;)

Matt

Sure thing. I'm glad you liked it.

thanks for the great app Micah... It was a huge time saver!

I apologize. I have fixed the link. You can now download the zip code class.

Does this script still exist? How can one obtain it? The zip file db-1.0.4.zip seems to contain something else