CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosobjective-cgoogle-maps
Fernando Mata
Fernando Mata

Reputation: 492

How to open a shortened Google Maps URL from my app?

I'm trying to open the Google Maps app in order to show some places in a map, each time the user clicks a certain button the idea is that my app will open Google Maps, the problem is that the only thing I have is a shortened Google URL, for example http:// www.goo.gl /maps/XXXXX; where the XXXXX changes depending on the location they chose.

When the user clicks the button I will check if they have Google Maps installed, in case they don't I'll open Safari, this works just fine, but I don't know how to do it for the Google Maps App.

Is there a way to open this URL with Google Maps SDK? I've read the information on this page https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/ios/, but no information is provided about this case.

This is the part of my code:

if([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"comgooglemaps://"]]){
     //Open Google Maps App
 }else{
     [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:selectedPlace.googleMapsLocation];
 }

Thank you!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2504

Answers (1)

ztan
ztan

Reputation: 6921

Shortened URL probably not supported in Google Maps iOS sdk url scheme.

You can use Google URL Shortener API to convert your shortened url back to a long url.

Sample request:
GET https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?shortUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fgoo.gl%2Fmaps%2FviRnZ&key={YOUR_API_KEY}

You can try the API request with your shortened url from this link.

From the API response, you can get a long url, something like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4249154,-122.0722049,13z Then you can parse the latitude and longitude to variables, and use them for the center parameter of your iOS sdk url scheme, for example 37.4249154,-122.0722049 is the center of the location, 13 is the zoom, then the your url scheme will be @"comgooglemaps://?center=37.4249154,-122.0722049&zoom=13

This documentation will give tell you details about Google Maps iOS sdk url scheme.

Sample code:

if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:
     [NSURL URLWithString:@"comgooglemaps://"]]) {
  [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:
   [NSURL URLWithString:@"comgooglemaps://?center=37.4249154,-122.0722049&zoom=13&views=traffic"]];
} else {
  NSLog(@"Can't use comgooglemaps://");
}

Full sample code to request long url and open in Google map:

  NSURLSession *session = [NSURLSession sharedSession];
    [[session dataTaskWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"https://www.googleapis.com/urlshortener/v1/url?shortUrl=https://goo.gl/maps/viRnZ&key=YOU_API_KEY"] completionHandler:
        ^(NSData *data, NSURLResponse *response, NSError *error) {
            if (!error) {
                if ([response isKindOfClass:[NSHTTPURLResponse class]]) {
                    NSInteger statusCode = [(NSHTTPURLResponse *)response statusCode];
                    if (statusCode != 200) {
                        NSLog(@"dataTaskWithRequest HTTP status code: %ld", (long)statusCode);
                        return;
                    }
                }
                NSError *jsonParseError = nil;
                NSDictionary *json = [NSJSONSerialization JSONObjectWithData:data options:0 error:&jsonParseError];
                if (!jsonParseError) {
                    NSLog(@"%@", json);
                    NSString *longUrl = [json objectForKey:@"longUrl"];
                    NSString *pattern = @".*?@([0-9.\\-]*),([0-9.\\-]*),([0-9.\\-]*).*";
                    NSError *regexError = nil;
                    NSRegularExpression *regex = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:pattern options:0 error:&regexError];
                    if (!regexError) {
                        NSArray* matches = [regex matchesInString:longUrl options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [longUrl length])];
                        NSString *latitude = [longUrl substringWithRange:[[matches objectAtIndex:0] rangeAtIndex:1]];
                        NSString *longitude = [longUrl substringWithRange:[[matches objectAtIndex:0] rangeAtIndex:2]];
                        NSString *zoom = [longUrl substringWithRange:[[matches objectAtIndex:0] rangeAtIndex:3]];
                        if ([[UIApplication sharedApplication] canOpenURL:
                             [NSURL URLWithString:@"comgooglemaps://"]]) {
                            NSString *openURL = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"comgooglemaps://?center=%@,%@&zoom=%@&views=traffic", latitude, longitude, zoom];
                            [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:
                             [NSURL URLWithString:openURL]];
                        } else {
                            [[UIApplication sharedApplication] openURL:
                             [NSURL URLWithString:longUrl]];
                        }
                    } else {
                        NSLog(@"REGEX error: %@", regexError);
                    }
                } else {
                    NSLog(@"JSON parse error: %@", jsonParseError);
                }
            } else {
                NSLog(@"API request error: %@", error);
            }
    }] resume];

Upvotes: 6

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