Introduction

What you get:

• Deploy and use geonames.org (ex MaxCDN) database localy to query countries/cities
• Get information like lattitude/longtityde, population etc
• Optimized DB tree structure for searching and traversing the tree.
• Provides an Eloquent model (geo) with multiple query-scopes to help you build your queries.
• Exposes a simple API that you can use to create AJAX calls. (Eg search while typing etc).
• A sample vue.js component that that can be inserted into your forms and provides a UI to pick a location

What you dont get:

• geoIP & Postalcodes (not included in free sets)
• Map elements smaller than "3rd Administration Division" (=Cities)

Instructions

• Install with copmoser. Run:

composer require igaster/laravel_cities

The Service provider will be autodiscovered and registered by Laravel. If you are using Laravel version <5.5 then you must manually add the Service Provider in app.php:

'providers' => [
    //...
    Igaster\LaravelCities\GeoServiceProvider::class,
];

• Create a folder geo into app's storage folder ('\storage\geo'). Download & unzip "hieararcy.txt" & "allCountries.txt" from geonames.org (http://download.geonames.org/export/dump)

[Tip] Quick script to download on your remote server with:

mkdir -p storage/geo && cd storage/geo
wget http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/allCountries.zip && unzip allCountries.zip && rm allCountries.zip
wget http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/hierarchy.zip && unzip hierarchy.zip && rm hierarchy.zip

or otherwise you can use

artisan geo:download

Download a *.txt files from geonames.org By default it will download allcountries and hierarchy files otherwise you can pass flag --countries for specific countries

• Migrate and Seed. Run:

artisan migrate
artisan geo:seed

you can increase the memory limit for the cli invocation on demand to have process the command at once

php -d memory_limit=8000M artisan geo:seed --chunk=100000

So this will increase the memory limit for the command to 8GB with large chunk for each batches

You can also pass --chunk argument to specify how much chunk you want to process at once suppose you want 3000 records to be processed at once you can pass. This gives flexibility to make the import with low memory footprints

artisan geo:seed --chunk=3000

by default it is 1000

Note: If you don't want all the countries, you can download only country specific files (eg US.txt) and import each one of them with:

artisan geo:seed US --append

Seed with custom data

Create a json file with custom data at storage\geo and run the following command to pick a file to seed:

artisan geo:json

If an item exists in the DB (based on the 'id' value), then it will be updated else a new entry will be inserted. For example the following json file will rename United States to USA and it will add a child item (set by the parent_id value)

[
  {
    "id": 6252001,
    "name": "USA"
  },
  {
    "name": "USA Child Item",
    "parent_id": 6252001,
    "alternames": ["51st State", "dummy name"],
    "population": 310232863,
    "lat": "39.760000",
    "long": "-98.500000"
  }
]

Please note that adding new items to the DB will reindex ALL items to rebuild the tree structure. Please be patient...

An example file is provided: countryNames.json which updates the official country names with a most popular simplified version.

Tip: You can get a json representation from the DB by quering the API (see below)

Geo Model:

You can use Igaster\LaravelCities\Geo Model to access the database. List of available properties:

$geo->name;       // name of geographical point in plain ascii
$geo->alternames; // Array of alternate names (Stored as Json)
$geo->country;    // 2-letter country code (ISO-3166)
$geo->id;         // Original id from geonames.org database (geonameid)
$geo->population; // Population (Where provided)
$geo->lat;        // latitude in decimal degrees (wgs84)
$geo->long;       // longitude in decimal degrees (wgs84)
$geo->level;      // Administrator level code (feature code)
// parent_id, left, right, depth: Used to build hierarcy tree

Visit http://www.geonames.org > Info, for a more detailed description.

Usage

Searching:

use Igaster\LaravelCities\Geo;

Geo::getCountries();               // Get a Collection of all countries
Geo::getCountry('US');             // Get item by Country code
Geo::findName('Nomos Kerkyras');   // Find item by (ascii) name
Geo::searchNames('york');          // Search item by all alternative names. Case insensitive 
Geo::searchNames('vegas', Geo::getCountry('US'));  // ... and belongs to an item
Geo::getByIds([390903,3175395]);   // Get a Collection of items by Ids

Traverse tree

$children    = $geo->getChildren();    // Get direct Children of $geo (Collection)
$parent      = $geo->getParent();      // Get single Parent of $geo (Geo)
$ancenstors  = $geo->getAncensors();   // Get Ancenstors tree of $geo from top->bottom (Collection)
$descendants = $geo->getDescendants(); // Get all Descentants of $geo alphabetic (Collection)

Check Hierarchy Relations:

$geo1->isParentOf($geo2);       // (Bool) Check if $geo2 is direct Parent of $geo1
$geo2->isChildOf($geo1);        // (Bool) Check if $geo2 is direct Child of $geo1
$geo1->isAncenstorOf($geo2);    // (Bool) Check if $geo2 is Ancenstor of $geo1
$geo2->isDescendantOf($geo1);   // (Bool) Check if $geo2 is Descentant of $geo1

Query scopes (Use them to Build custom queries)

Geo::level($level);     // Filter by Administration level: 
                        // Geo::LEVEL_COUNTRY, Geo::LEVEL_CAPITAL, Geo::LEVEL_1, Geo::LEVEL_2, Geo::LEVEL_3
Geo::country('US');     // (Shortcut) Items that belongs to country US 
Geo::capital();         // (Shortcut) Items that are capitals
Geo::search($name);     // Items that conain $name in name OR alternames (Case InSensitive)
Geo::areDescentants($geo);   // Items that belong to $geo

$geo->ancenstors();     // Items that contain $geo
$geo->descendants();    // Items that belong to $geo
$geo->children();       // Items that are direct children of $geo


//--Scope usage Examples:

// Get the States of USA in aplhabetic order
Geo::getCountry('US')
	->children()
	->orderBy('name')
	->get();

// Get the 3 biggest cities of Greece
Geo::getCountry('GR')
	->level(Geo::LEVEL_3)
	->orderBy('population','DESC')
	->limit(3)
	->get();

If you need more functionality you can extend Igaster\LaravelCities\Geo model and add your methods.

HTTP API

This package defines some API routes that can be used to query the DB through simple HTTP requests. To use them insert in your routes file:

\Igaster\LaravelCities\Geo::ApiRoutes();

For example if you insert them in your routes\api.php (recomended) then the following URLs will be registered:

The response is always a JSON representation of either a Geo class or a Collection.

To reduce bandwith, all Geo model attributes will be returned except from alternames, left, right and depth. You can change this behavior by passing an optional parameter on any request:

Vue Component

A Vue component is shipped with this package that plugs into the provided API and provides an interactive way to pick a location through a series of steps. Sorry, no live demo yet, just some screenshots:

Step 1: Select your location. Drop down lists loads asynchronous:

Step 2: Reached to a destination. Path is displayed and button to edit selection:

Step 3: On form submition several fields are beeing submited:

Usage Guide

Assuming that you are using Webpack to compile your assets, and you have included vue-app.js:

Add in your application

In your main vue-app.js file add the component declaration:

Vue.component('geo-select', require('RELATIVE_PATH_TO/vendor/igaster/laravel_cities/src/vue/geo-select.vue'));

Alternative you may publish the component with

artisan vendor:publish --provider="Igaster\LaravelCities\GeoServiceProvider"

Component will be exported at /resources/LaravelCities/geo-select.vue so that you can make modifications...

Compile compoment

npm run dev (or npm run production)

Use in blade files

Example:

<form action="post-url" method="POST">
	<geo-select></geo-select>
	<!-- Add more form fields here... -->
	<input type="submit">
</form>

The following inputs will be submited:

• geo-id
• geo-name
• geo-long
• geo-lat
• geo-country
• geo-country-code

Full syntax:

<geo-select
	prefix = "geo"                    <!-- change the  fields name prefix --> 
	api-root-url = "\api"             <!-- Root url for API -->
	:countries = "[390903,3175395]"   <!-- Limit to specific countries (defined by ids) -->
	:enable-breadcrumb = "true"       <!-- Enable/Disable Breadcrumb -->
></geo-select>