Javascript to find get latitude and longitude from Google Maps

Question

I'm trying to pull the latitude/longitude from an API call to Google Maps. The code I am using is the following:

var text gMaps = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/xml?address=" & URLEncode(SearchAndReplace([Related Staff - Address]," ","+")) & "&key=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx";

var text lat = URLRoot() & "db/" & Dbid() & "?act=API_EditRecord" & "&rid=" & [Record ID#] & "&apptoken=xxxxxxxxxxxxx" & "&_fid_113=";    

    "javascript: {" &
   
         "$.get('" & $gMaps & "',function(data,success) {" &
            "console.log(data);" &
            "var geo = data.getElementsByTagName('geometry')[0].getAttribute('lat');"  &
            "console.log(geo);" & 
            "$.get('" & $lat & "'+geo);" &
            "window.location.reload();" &
        "});" &
"}"

This is for a button in Quickbase to put the info into 2 fields. The example above is only dealing with the latitude for now. This code is giving me a null result, I'm familiar with javascript, but still need a lot of learning.

Here's the xml response that I'm pulling from.

Thanks for any help provided.

Dana

Answer 1

You can use Javascript's DOMParser and XPath features to extract the lat and lng from an XML string:

let xmlString = `
    <GeocodeResponse>
     <status>OK</status>
     <result>
      <type>sample</type>
      <name>Sample XML</name>
      <location>
       <lat>37.4217550</lat>
       <lng>-122.0846330</lng>
      </location>
     </result>
     <result>
      <message>The secret message</message>
     </result>
    </GeocodeResponse>
`

var parser = new DOMParser();
var xmlDoc = parser.parseFromString(xmlString, "text/xml"); //important to use "text/xml"

var nsResolver = xmlDoc.createNSResolver( xmlDoc.ownerDocument == null ? xmlDoc.documentElement : xmlDoc.ownerDocument.documentElement);

var lat = xmlDoc.evaluate('//lat', xmlDoc, nsResolver, XPathResult.STRING_TYPE, null ).stringValue;
var lng = xmlDoc.evaluate('//lng', xmlDoc, nsResolver, XPathResult.STRING_TYPE, null ).stringValue;

console.log(lat, lng) // 37.4217550 -122.0846330

Also see Parse XML file with JavaScript and plot on Google Maps

Answer 2

It doesn't look like you're finishing your lat query string variable. Your variable ends up being "yourdomain.quickbase.com/db/yourdbid?act=API_EditRecord&apptoken=&rid=&_fid_113=" and so fid 113 is never actually assigned a value. Even though you're running the JavaScript below no where is it being told to be assigned to fid 113. Also, it's worth nothing that JavaScript injection is soon going to be a thing of the past in Quick Base so this might be something you want to throw into a code page instead which would be easier anyways because then you could use the geocoder object that the Google Maps API provides.

Answer 3

I would advise to use a Code Page inside of Quick Base instead a formula field for this solution. With a code page you can brig in an XML parser library to handle the response and then make then next API call to Quick Base with the latitude and longitude values. That would be the best practice.