Trying to separate two separate strings

Question

I'm trying to return to separate string in this if statement and not as a single string. one as a latitude and the other as longitude

static string GeoCoding(string address)
{
    var json = new WebClient().DownloadString(baseUrlGC + address.Replace(" ", "+")
        + plusUrl);//concatenate URL with the input address and downloads the requested resource
    GoogleGeoCodeResponse jsonResult = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<GoogleGeoCodeResponse>(json); //deserializing the result to GoogleGeoCodeResponse

    string status = jsonResult.status; // get status 

    string geoLocation = String.Empty;

    //check if status is OK
    if (status == "OK") 
    {
        
        for (int i = 0; i < jsonResult.results.Length;i++) //loop throught the result for lat/lng
        {
            geoLocation = jsonResult.results[i].geometry.location.lat + jsonResult.results[i].geometry.location.lng + Environment.NewLine; //append the result addresses to every new line
        }
        return geoLocation; //return result
    }
    else
    {
        return status; //return status / error if not OK
    }
}

Answer 1

Assuming your expected result is 2 string: Latitude Longitude and a code when there is error. I would suggest you create a new

class GeoResponse{
List<(string, string)> geocodeList;
string  status;
} 

and change return type of your method to

static GeoResponse GeoCoding(string address)
        {
            var json = new WebClient().DownloadString(baseUrlGC + address.Replace(" ", "+")
                + plusUrl);//concatenate URL with the input address and downloads the requested resource
            GoogleGeoCodeResponse jsonResult = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<GoogleGeoCodeResponse>(json); //deserializing the result to GoogleGeoCodeResponse

           

            GeoResponse result = new GeoResponse();
            result.status = jsonResult.status; // get status 

            //check if status is OK
            if (status == "OK")
            {

                for (int i = 0; i < jsonResult.results.Length; i++) //loop throught the result for lat/lng
                {
                    result.geocodeList.Add(jsonResult.results[i].geometry.location.lat, jsonResult.results[i].geometry.location.lng);
                }
            }
            return result;
        }

Answer 2

If you would like to return with all lat-long pairs (without creating a new data structure) when status is ok and throw an exception when status was not ok then you can do that like this:

static List<Tuple<string, string>> GeoCoding(string address)
{
    var json = new WebClient().DownloadString($"...");
    var jsonResult = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<GoogleGeoCodeResponse>(json); 

    if (jsonResult.status != "OK")
        throw new Exception($"Request failed with {jsonResult.status}");

    return jsonResult.results
        .Select(result => result.geometry.location)
        .Select(loc => new Tuple<string, string>(loc.lat, loc.lng))
        .ToList();
}

If you can use ValueTuple then you could rewrite the code like this:

static List<(string Lat, string Long)> GeoCoding(string address)
{
    ...

    return jsonResult.results
        .Select(result => result.geometry.location)
        .Select(loc => (loc.lat, loc.lng))
        .ToList();
}

Please also note that WebClient is deprecated so please prefer HttpClient instead.

---

UPDATE #1

I want to output "N/A" for the ZERO_RESULTS

static List<(string Lat, string Long)> GeoCoding(string address)
{
    var json = new WebClient().DownloadString($"...");
    var jsonResult = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<GoogleGeoCodeResponse>(json); 

    if (jsonResult.status == "ZERO_RESULTS")
        return new List<(string, string)> { ("N/A", "N/A") };

    if (jsonResult.status != "OK")
        throw new Exception($"Request failed with {jsonResult.status}");

    return jsonResult.results
        .Select(result => result.geometry.location)
        .Select(loc => (loc.lat, loc.lng))
        .ToList();
}