无法使用Google Places API和PHP / cURL连接到主机错误

Question

I'm trying to use PHP and cURL to get data from the Google Places API, but cURL is giving me the error "Couldn't connect to host". If I paste the Google Places request URL in the browser, it works fine. file_get_contents didn't work either. Here is my code:

$ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($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);
    $result = curl_exec ($ch);
    if (curl_errno($ch)) {
            return curl_error($ch);
    } else {
    curl_close($ch);
    }
    return $result;

The URL I'm requesting is https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/search/json?key=xxx&location=27.916766641249062,-82.08984375&radius=50000&sensor=true&types=bar%7Cnight_club . I removed my API key for security purposes.

Answer 1

I really like using file_get_contents() when possible, it is so simple and elegant.

Usually I do

<?php
$json = (array) json_decode(file_get_contents("https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/search/json?key=xxx&location=27.916766641249062,-82.08984375&radius=50000&sensor=true&types=bar%7Cnight_club."));

var_dump($json);
?>

then you should see an array like this :

array(3) {
  ["html_attributions"]=>
  array(0) {
  }
  ["results"]=>
  array(0) {
  }
  ["status"]=>
  string(14) "REQUEST_DENIED"
}

Obviously, I don't have a correct API key :) hope it will be useful.