Usage

directions = GoogleDirections.new(origin, destination)

where origin and destination are strings of addresses or places that Google can find an address for. Example: “816 Meridian St., 37207”

Get drive time or distance of whole trip 


drive_time_in_minutes = directions.drive_time_in_minutes
distance_in_miles = directions.distance_in_miles

Get the XML Google returns with every turn, or the API call URL 


xml = directions.xml  
xml_call = directions.xml_call

Error situations

status: NOT_FOUND

If Google can’t recognize your places, the distance_in_miles and drive_time_in_minutes will each return 0. You can call 

directions.status
and it should return “NOT_FOUND” (directions.status will also return any other Google API call statuses)

status: OVER_QUERY_LIMIT

If Google thinks you’ve hit their API too many times in day, or too rapidly, for your given IP address and API key; they might return OVER_QUERY_LIMIT. In this case distance_in_miles and drive_time_in_minutes will each return 0. You can call 

directions.status
and it should return “OVER_QUERY_LIMIT”

Installation

gem

rails 2.3

  1. gem install google_directions
  2. add config.gem “google_directions” to your environment.rb file

rails 3.0

  1. gem ‘google_directions’ in your Gemfile
  2. bundle install
    from command line

Rails plugin

Rails 2.3 

script/plugin install git://github.com/joshcrews/google-directions-ruby.git

Rails 3.0 

rails plugin install git://github.com/joshcrews/google-directions-ruby.git

Compatibility

Tested on Rails 2.3.8

Not yet tested on Rails 3. It probably is Rails 3 compatible, because it’s just a single class with a few methods. It’s probably compatible with every ruby project ever.

Google maps API key

You’ll need a Google Map API key

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html

Include it as the constant GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY in an app configuration file (environment.rb, config/initializers/api_keys.rb)

Need turn-by-turn directions?

Not yet included in this gem, but you can do it with nokogiri to parse the XML that comes back when you do 

GoogleDirections.new(origin, destination).xml
And then nokogiri can cycle through each and you can pick out what you need.

License

Anyone can use this code in any way.