Extracting individual address components from Google geocoder results in Google Apps Script - google-apps-script

Question

There seems to be some difficulty about getting individual address components out of a JSON Google geocoder result. For example, I want to get county names based on addresses. Could someone please explain why, for example, this code doesn't work?
function county(){
var geo = Maps.newGeocoder().geocode('address');
for (var i=0; i<geo.results.address_components.length; i++)
for (var j=0; j<geo.results.address_components[i].types.length; j++)
if (geo.results.address_components[i].types[j]=="administrative_area_level_2")
var county = geo.results.address_components[i].long_name;
}
I know this is overly simplistic, but it can't even recognize the results.address_components
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You can use the Logger object to look at intermediary data like this:
Logger.log(geo)
You'll see something like this in the view menu, under logs:
{results=[{address_components=[{long_name=Address, short_name=Address, types=[point_of_interest, establishment]}, {long_name=Madrid, short_name=Madrid, types=[locality, political]}, {long_name=Madrid, short_name=M, types=[administrative_area_level_2, political]}, {long_name=Community of Madrid, short_name=Community of Madrid, types=[administrative_area_level_1, political]}, {long_name=Spain, short_name=ES, types=[country, political]}, {long_name=28039, short_name=28039, types=[postal_code]}], formatted_address=Address, 28039 Madrid, Spain, types=[hospital, point_of_interest, establishment], geometry={viewport={southwest={lng=-3.708366880291502, lat=40.44598801970851}, northeast={lng=-3.705668919708498, lat=40.44868598029151}}, location_type=APPROXIMATE, location={lng=-3.7070179, lat=40.447337}}}, {address_components=[{long_name=Address:, short_name=Address:, types=[point_of_interest, establishment]}, {long_name=Pineville, short_name=Pineville, types=[locality, political]}, {long_name=1, Charlotte, short_name=1, Charlotte, types=[administrative_area_level_3, political]}, {long_name=Mecklenburg County, .........
If you run
function myFunction() {
var geo = Maps.newGeocoder().geocode('1600 pennsylvania ave, washington, dc');
Logger.log(geo.results[0].address_components);
}
myFunction();
You can see the components in the log, it will look like this:
{long_name=1600, short_name=1600, types=[street_number]}, {long_name=President's Park, short_name=President's Park, types=[establishment]}, {long_name=Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest, short_name=Pennsylvania Ave NW, types=[route]}, {long_name=Washington, short_name=Washington, types=[locality, political]}, {long_name=District of Columbia, short_name=DC, types=[administrative_area_level_1, political]}, {long_name=United States, short_name=US, types=[country, political]}, {long_name=20500, short_name=20500, types=[postal_code]}
In this case, none of components are "administrative_area_level_2", but in your case they might be.
You should also consider using Array.forEach.
Hopefully this will help you nail down what the more specific problem is.

Answer 2

To add on to Aaron and Micah's answers, you're really close, just mostly need to select the first result. geocode produces an array of results, but if you're geocoding a single address, grabbing the first will work. Their answer uses the White House address, which appears not to have a county, but using Google HQ (as Google tends to do in examples) produces a valid result.
Here's a generic function for selecting any component of the geocoding responses, also leveraging indexOf to check if the desired component is in the types array (saving a for loop):
function getAddressComponent(address, component) {
var geo = Maps.newGeocoder().geocode(address);
var resultComponents = geo.results[0].address_components;
for (var i = 0; i < resultComponents.length; i++) {
if (resultComponents[i].types.indexOf(component) > -1) {
return resultComponents[i].long_name;
}
}
}
Testing with Logger, we get the correct value of 'Santa Clara County':
function getAddressComponent_test() {
var address = '1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA';
Logger.log(getAddressComponent(address, 'administrative_area_level_2'));
}