IP location API example

Programming Questions

ladles

in Programming Questions • 2 years ago

I'm hoping to make a sketch using an api to (eventually) generate a shape from location data gathered by using an ip lookup api. I have found some examples on the home page of the api but I'm not proficient enough in any of the languages provided, if someone could take a look for me and explain how I might make a simple individual request for a given ip address I would realy appreciate it.

I have done a little work using the tweetstream library so I understand how it works in principle but I can't be sure if i need to use the php code provided or if I can do it more simply somehow.

Here is the api homepage: http://ipinfodb.com/ip_location_api.php

And here is the javascript example code: http://ipinfodb.com/ip_location_api_json.php

Thanks, L.

Replies(4)

jeff_g

Re: IP location API example

2 years ago

I've used Maxmind's free GeoLite City binary database along with their Java API in Processing to do IP to GeoLocation lookups.
Place the maxmindgeoip.jar file in the Code directory and the GeoLiteCity.dat in the Data directory.

import com.maxmind.geoip.*;
LookupService cl;
void setup() {
loadGeoIP();
CityLookupTest();
}
void loadGeoIP() {
try {
cl = new LookupService(dataPath("GeoLiteCity.dat"), LookupService.GEOIP_INDEX_CACHE);
}
catch (IOException e) {
System.out.println("IO Exception:" + e);
}
}
void CityLookupTest () {
try {
// Location l1 = cl.getLocation("213.52.50.8");
Location l2 = cl.getLocation("198.4.104.128");
System.out.println("countryCode: " + l2.countryCode +
"\n countryName: " + l2.countryName +
"\n region: " + l2.region +
"\n regionName: " + regionName.regionNameByCode(l2.countryCode, l2.region) +
"\n city: " + l2.city +
"\n postalCode: " + l2.postalCode +
"\n latitude: " + l2.latitude +
"\n longitude: " + l2.longitude +
// "\n distance: " + l2.distance(l1) +
// "\n distance: " + l1.distance(l2) +
"\n metro code: " + l2.metro_code +
"\n area code: " + l2.area_code +
"\n timezone: " + timeZone.timeZoneByCountryAndRegion(l2.countryCode, l2.region));
cl.close();
}
catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println("Exception: " + e);
}
}

PhiLho

Re: IP location API example

2 years ago

If I understood correctly, you can do a loadString on a given URL, and you will get an XML answer which you must parse.
But since they use the database mentioned by jeff_g, you can go to the real thing directly, it might be simpler and would allow higher rate of consultation.

ladles

Re: IP location API example

2 years ago

Thank you both, I didn't realise that making single requests was so straight forward! For now I can use your answer PhiLo, as I'm having trouble getting anything out of the .gz compressed .dat file (which I assume is the database), but I will try storing it all locally as soon as I can. Much appreciated both thanks.

JeffG - Out of curiosity what were you doing with the locations? - I'm aiming to generate a spherical map of sorts but would be interested to hear what came of your experiments.

jeff_g

Re: IP location API example

2 years ago

I was working on something similar to the NYTE visualization.

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