Geocoding / Address Validation with MSN Virtual Earth

The following class provides everything needed to submit an address to the Virtual Earth engine and return a corrected address with latitude and longitude coordinates:

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
namespace VE
{
public class Search
{
public static object[] SearchAddress(string address)
{
object[] foundResults = Search.SearchForAddress(address);
if (foundResults.Length==3)
{
return foundResults;
}
else
{
return null;
}
}

public static string ProxyAddress
{
get { return proxyAddress; }
set { proxyAddress = value; }
}

static string proxyAddress =String.Empty;

public static string ProxyUserName
{
get { return proxyUserName; }
set { proxyUserName = value; }
}

static string proxyUserName = String.Empty;

public static string ProxyPassword
{
get { return proxyPassword; }
set { proxyPassword = value; }
}

static string proxyPassword = String.Empty;
public static object[] SearchForAddress(
string address)
{
double pointLat=0;
double pointLong=0;
string pointAddr=String.Empty;
string searchParams =
"a=&b=" + address + "&c=0.0&d=0.0&e=0.0&f=0.0&g=&i=&r=0";
string results = DoSearchRequest(searchParams);
if (results == null || results == string.Empty)
{
return null;
}
// this gets the first set of javascript returned, for viewport, which we don't need
// Parse results
// Regex r = new Regex(@"SetViewport\((?<lat1>\S+),(?<long1>\S+),(?<lat2>\S+),(?<long2>\S+)\)");
// Match m = r.Match(results);
try
{
Regex r2 = new Regex(@"VE_Scratchpad.AddLocation\((?<pointAddr>.+\S+), (?<pointLat>\S+), (?<pointLong>\S+)\)") ;
Match m2 = r2.Match(results);
pointAddr=(string)m2.Groups["pointAddr"].Value;
pointAddr= pointAddr.Replace("'","") ;
pointLat=double.Parse(m2.Groups["pointLat"].Value) ;
pointLong = double.Parse(m2.Groups["pointLong"].Value );
}
catch
{}
object[] res= new object[] {pointAddr,pointLat,pointLong};
return res;
}

private static string DoSearchRequest(string searchParams)
{
string results = String.Empty;
HttpWebRequest searchRequest =
(HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create( "http://207.46.159.133/search.ashx" );
searchRequest.Method = "POST";
if(Search.proxyAddress.Length >0)
{
WebProxy loProxy = new WebProxy( Search.proxyAddress ,true);
loProxy.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(Search.proxyUserName ,Search.proxyPassword);
searchRequest.Proxy = loProxy;
}
searchRequest.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
System.Text.UTF8Encoding encoding = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
byte[] bytes = encoding.GetBytes(searchParams);
searchRequest.ContentLength = bytes.Length;
try
{
Stream requestStream = searchRequest.GetRequestStream();
requestStream.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
requestStream.Close();
results = GetSearchResults(searchRequest);
}
catch (WebException ex)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.Write(ex.Message +ex.StackTrace ) ;
}
return results;
}

private static string GetSearchResults(HttpWebRequest searchRequest)
{
string results = string.Empty;
HttpWebResponse searchResponse;
searchResponse =
(HttpWebResponse)searchRequest.GetResponse();
Stream receiveStream = searchResponse.GetResponseStream();
System.Text.Encoding encode = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8");
StreamReader readStream = new StreamReader(receiveStream, encode);
Char[] read = new Char[256];
int count = readStream.Read(read, 0, 256);
while (count > 0)
{
String str = new String(read, 0, count);
results += str;
count = readStream.Read(read, 0, 256);
}
searchResponse.Close();
return results;
}
}
}


Submission Date:  10/23/2005 3:56:57 PM
Submitted By:  Peter Bromberg
My Home Page:  http://www.eggheadcafe.com