Calculate the distance between two string addresses
Please be sure of your agent type and version and pick the right documentation accordingly.
This is the documentation of the forest-express-sequelize
and forest-express-mongoose
Node.js agents that will soon reach end-of-support.
forest-express-sequelize
v9 and forest-express-mongoose
v9 are replaced by @forestadmin/agent
v1.
Please check your agent type and version and read on or switch to the right documentation.
Calculate the distance between two string addresses
Context: As a user I want to be able to obtain the distance between two objects that have address information as a string.
Example: I have a collection places
that has lineAddress1
, addressCity
and country
fields.
In a smart action called get distance to another place
called from a specific place, I want to be able to select another place, choosing the locomotion mode and get the distance between the two and duration of trip.
Implementation
First you need to declare the action and the content of the form.
forest/places.js
const { collection } = require('forest-express-sequelize');
collection('places', {
actions: [
{
name: 'get distance to other place',
fields: [
{
field: 'destination',
reference: 'places.id',
},
{
field: 'mode',
type: 'Enum',
enums: ['driving', 'bicycling', 'walking'],
},
],
},
],
fields: [],
segments: [],
});
Then you need to implement the logic of the action. Here we use the service superagent
to handle api calls.
The process has two main steps:
call to the places api to retrieve the place_id identifier corresponding to the string address of the origin and destination (that is computed as a complete address based on the separate
addressLine1
,addressCity
andcountry
fields)call to the distance matrix api to retrieve the distance information based on the origin and destination's place_ids
The result returned to the UI is formatted in html to enable a good display to the user.
routes/places.js
const express = require('express');
const superagent = require('superagent');
const { PermissionMiddlewareCreator } = require('forest-express-sequelize');
const { places } = require('../models');
const router = express.Router();
const permissionMiddlewareCreator = new PermissionMiddlewareCreator('places');
router.post(
'/actions/get-distance-to-other-place',
permissionMiddlewareCreator.smartAction(),
async (request, response, next) => {
let origin = {};
let destination = {};
const attr = request.body.data.attributes;
const where = {
id: [attr.ids[0], attr.values.destination],
};
function computeFullAddress(address) {
return `${address.addressLine1},${address.addressCity}, ${address.country}`;
}
function setOriginDestination(addressesArray) {
addressesArray.forEach((address) => {
if (`${address.id}` === attr.ids[0]) {
origin = { address: computeFullAddress(address) };
} else {
destination = { address: computeFullAddress(address) };
}
});
}
function getPlaceId(place) {
return superagent
.get(
'https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/findplacefromtext/json?'
)
.query({
input: place.address,
inputtype: 'textquery',
fields: 'place_id,geometry/location',
key: process.env.GOOGLE_API_KEY,
})
.then((res) => {
const data = JSON.parse(res.text);
return data.candidates[0].place_id;
});
}
//get the addresses records based on the current record id and the selected destination id
const addressesRecords = await places.findAll({ where });
//add the full address to the empty objects origin and destination
setOriginDestination(addressesRecords);
// retrieve the place_id for the origin and destination
const googlePlaceIds = await Promise.all([
getPlaceId(origin),
getPlaceId(destination),
]);
[origin.placeId, destination.placeId] = googlePlaceIds;
//perform call to the distance matrix api
return superagent
.get('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?')
.query({
origins: `place_id:${origin.placeId}`,
destinations: `place_id:${destination.placeId}`,
key: process.env.GOOGLE_API_KEY,
// the mode here corresponds to the one selected in the action form
mode: attr.values.mode,
})
.then((res) => {
console.log(res.text);
return JSON.parse(res.text);
})
.then((results) => {
response.send({
html: `
<strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Distance between</strong>
<p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${results.origin_addresses[0]}</p>
<p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">and</p>
<p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${results.destination_addresses[0]}</p>
<strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Distance</strong>
<p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${results.rows[0].elements[0].distance.text}</p>
<strong class="c-form__label--read c-clr-1-2">Duration</strong>
<p class="c-clr-1-4 l-mb">${results.rows[0].elements[0].duration.text}</p>
`,
});
})
.catch((e) => console.log(e.response.error));
}
);
module.exports = router;
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