Question

Get weather on postcode input

Asked by: xjdx

I need to fetch the weather forecast information, when a user enter their postcode into a text box, haven't got a clue how this would be achieved, whether it would just query something like BBC Weather? I don't know, any advice would be great thanks!

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Asked On
2008-09-27 at 20:40:42ID23769167
Tags

PHP, XHTML

Topic

PHP Scripting Language

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: Ray_PaseurPosted on 2008-09-28 at 07:12:33ID: 22591088

Hi, xjdx.  

The basic concept is a server-to-server inquiry.  From the post code, you would call a weather server and retrieve the data.  You may have to pay for this data -- it costs money to monitor the weather -- but there may be some government resources.

The information you get back might come in a CSV string or in XML.  Or you may have to "scrape" the HTML to get the answers.

This uses town names, not postal codes, but it will give you the idea...
http://www.wunderground.com/global/UK.html

Another fun links is here (USA only, I think):
http://www.umbrellatoday.com/

Accuweather offers an interface that looks like this.  Note the insertion of the postalcode argument.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/index-forecast.asp?postalcode=SW1A+2AA&Submit1=GO!

HTH, ~Ray

 

by: shadow_shooterPosted on 2008-09-28 at 09:51:33ID: 22591757

Like Ray Paseur said, you need a service which gives you the results in XML or CSV. So, by using javascript and/or Ajax you can read the data in XML nodes. If you are excessive about it, you can try PHP Curl. It helps you to use services in a website like a live user. So, when you fill the form with Curl, the result may be read by means of HTML. Be aware that, the slightest change in the target structure of website may lead data corruption.

Some useful websites I recommend>

http://www.dynamic-webpages.de/count/2702/tutorials/scraping_links_with_php/
http://www.dynamic-webpages.de/count/2538/tutorials/using_curl_with_php/
http://devzone.zend.com/article/1081-Using-cURL-and-libcurl-with-PHP

 

by: Ray_PaseurPosted on 2008-09-28 at 10:00:50ID: 22591786

Now that I've had a few minutes to look at this issue, a Google search on Weather API turne up this:
http://weather.weatherbug.com/desktop-weather/api.html

I'm registering for it right now...

 

by: Ray_PaseurPosted on 2008-09-28 at 10:19:47ID: 22591851

Look here for some of the things you can get out of the WeatherBug API.
http://weather.weatherbug.com/corporate/products/API/help.aspx

There are about 57,000 city codes.  Some of the UK records look like this (see code snippet).  You  might want to load that information into a data base so you can select the town.  I did not find any direct postcode-to-town translation, but that should be readily available and could be easily used to access the town name in this table.

Then you present the city code to the WeatherBug API and you'll get your data back  Easy!

Best of luck, ~Ray

60870,Littleborough,--,EL,United Kingdom
60871,Littlehampton,--,EL,United Kingdom
60872,Liverpool,--,EL,United Kingdom
800928,Llanwrtyd Wells,--,EL,United Kingdom
60873,Locks Heath,--,EL,United Kingdom
60874,Locks Heath/Bursledon,--,EL,United Kingdom
60875,Lofthouse/Stanley,--,EL,United Kingdom
60876,London,--,EL,United Kingdom
60877,Long Benton/Killingworth,--,EL,United Kingdom
60878,Long Eaton,--,EL,United Kingdom
60879,Longdendale,--,EL,United Kingdom
60880,Longfield/New Ash Green,--,EL,United Kingdom
60881,Longton,--,EL,United Kingdom
60882,Loughborough,--,EL,United Kingdom
60883,Loughton,--,EL,United Kingdom
60884,Louth,--,EL,United Kingdom
60885,Lowestoft,--,EL,United Kingdom
800441,Lulworth,--,EL,United Kingdom
60886,Luton,--,EL,United Kingdom
60887,Luton/Dunstable,--,EL,United Kingdom
60888,Lymington,--,EL,United Kingdom
60889,Lymington and Pennington,--,EL,United Kingdom
EGDL,Lyneham,--,EL,United Kingdom
125169,Lynmouth,--,EL,United Kingdom
60890,Lytham St Annes,--,EL,United Kingdom
60891,Mablethorpe and Sutton,--,EL,United Kingdom
60892,Macclesfield,--,EL,United Kingdom
60893,Macclesfield/Prestbury,--,EL,United Kingdom
60894,Madeley,--,EL,United Kingdom
60895,Maghull,--,EL,United Kingdom
60896,Maghull/Lydiate,--,EL,United Kingdom
60897,Maidenhead,--,EL,United Kingdom
                                              
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