Geocode and reverse geocode your data using, R, JSON and Google Maps' Geocoding API

Geocode and reverse geocode your data using, R, JSON and Google Maps' Geocoding API

To geocode and reverse geocode my data, I use Google's Geocoding service which returns the geocoded data in a JSON. I will recommend that you register with Google Maps API and get a key if you have large amount of data and would do repeated geo coding.

Geocode:

getGeoCode <- function(gcStr)  {
  library("RJSONIO") #Load Library
  gcStr <- gsub(' ','%20',gcStr) #Encode URL Parameters
 #Open Connection
 connectStr <- paste('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?sensor=false&address=',gcStr, sep="") 
  con <- url(connectStr)
  data.json <- fromJSON(paste(readLines(con), collapse=""))
  close(con)
  #Flatten the received JSON
  data.json <- unlist(data.json)
  if(data.json["status"]=="OK")   {
    lat <- data.json["results.geometry.location.lat"]
    lng <- data.json["results.geometry.location.lng"]
    gcodes <- c(lat, lng)
    names(gcodes) <- c("Lat", "Lng")
    return (gcodes)
  }
}
geoCodes <- getGeoCode("Palo Alto,California")
> geoCodes
           Lat            Lng 
  "37.4418834" "-122.1430195" 

Reverse Geocode:
reverseGeoCode <- function(latlng) {
latlngStr <-  gsub(' ','%20', paste(latlng, collapse=","))#Collapse and Encode URL Parameters
  library("RJSONIO") #Load Library
  #Open Connection
  connectStr <- paste('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?sensor=false&latlng=',latlngStr, sep="")
  con <- url(connectStr)
  data.json <- fromJSON(paste(readLines(con), collapse=""))
  close(con)
  #Flatten the received JSON
  data.json <- unlist(data.json)
  if(data.json["status"]=="OK")
    address <- data.json["results.formatted_address"]
  return (address)
}
address <- reverseGeoCode(c(37.4418834, -122.1430195))
> address
                    results.formatted_address 
"668 Coleridge Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301, USA" 

 Happy Coding!

Sentiment Analysis, the R way, on Netflix's September 18th Announcement

Re-posting this blog from my other blog on Analytics (http://allthingsbusinessanalytics.blogspot.com/)

Did Netflix make a bad move or a bold move, only time will tell but for now here is a simple sentiment analysis using R and TwitteR package on tweets involving Netflix for you to consume...

So aftermath of #netflix supposedly bad strategic move, I thought that it will be little fun to do a little sentiment analysis using a sample of tweets from the past few days. I turned to my favorite "R" and discovered a new package called "TwitteR" and 4 lines of code later, I had the following outcome:

788 of the 1500 tweets, that is 52.5% of the tweets, over the last three days had words bad, suck, terrible or :( with #netflix...

You be the judge whether Netflix customers are unhappy and whether it was a bad (or bold) strategic move...

>  library("twitteR")

> searchNF <- searchTwitter("#netflix bad OR suck OR terrible OR disaster OR :(", n=1500, since=as.character(Sys.Date()-3))

> negativeTweets <- length(searchNF)

> negativeSentiment <- negativeTweets/1500

Geocode your data using, R, JSON and Google Maps' Geocoding APIs

Over the last year and half, I have faced numerous challenges with geocoding the data that I have used to showcase my passion for location analytics.  In 2012, I decided to take thing in my control and turned to R.  Here, I am sharing a simple R script that I wrote to geo-code my data whenever I needed it, even BIG Data.


To geocode my data, I use Google's Geocoding service which returns the geocoded data in a JSON. I will recommend that you register with Google Maps API and get a key if you have large amount of data and would do repeated geo coding.

Here is function that can be called repeatedly by other functions:

getGeoCode <- function(gcStr)

{

  library("RJSONIO") #Load Library

  gcStr <- gsub(' ','%20',gcStr) #Encode URL Parameters

 #Open Connection

 connectStr <- paste('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?sensor=false&address=',gcStr, sep="") 

  con <- url(connectStr)

  data.json <- fromJSON(paste(readLines(con), collapse=""))

  close(con)

#Flatten the received JSON

  data.json <- unlist(data.json)

  lat <- data.json["results.geometry.location.lat"]

  lng <- data.json["results.geometry.location.lng"]

  gcodes <- c(lat, lng)

  names(gcodes) <- c("Lat", "Lng")

  return (gcodes)

}

Let's put this function to test:

geoCodes <- getGeoCode("Palo Alto,California")

> geoCodes
           Lat            Lng 
  "37.4418834" "-122.1430195" 

You can run this on the entire column of a data frame or a data table:

Here  is my sample data frame with three columns - Opposition, Ground.Country and Toss. Two of the columns, you guessed it right, need geocoding.

> head(shortDS,10)

     Opposition              Ground.Country Toss

1      Pakistan            Karachi,Pakistan  won

2      Pakistan         Faisalabad,Pakistan lost

3      Pakistan             Lahore,Pakistan  won

4      Pakistan            Sialkot,Pakistan lost

5   New Zealand    Christchurch,New Zealand lost

6   New Zealand          Napier,New Zealand  won

7   New Zealand        Auckland,New Zealand  won

8       England              Lord's,England  won

9       England          Manchester,England lost

10      England            The Oval,England  won

To geo code this, here is a simple one liner I execute:

shortDS <- with(shortDS, data.frame(Opposition, Ground.Country, Toss,

                  laply(Ground.Country, function(val){getGeoCode(val)})))

> head(shortDS, 10)
    Opposition           Ground.Country Toss  Ground.Lat  Ground.Lng
1     Pakistan         Karachi,Pakistan  won   24.893379   67.028061
2     Pakistan      Faisalabad,Pakistan lost   31.408951   73.083458
3     Pakistan          Lahore,Pakistan  won    31.54505   74.340683
4     Pakistan         Sialkot,Pakistan lost  32.4972222  74.5361111
5  New Zealand Christchurch,New Zealand lost -43.5320544 172.6362254
6  New Zealand       Napier,New Zealand  won -39.4928444 176.9120178
7  New Zealand     Auckland,New Zealand  won -36.8484597 174.7633315
8      England           Lord's,England  won     51.5294     -0.1727
9      England       Manchester,England lost   53.479251   -2.247926
10     England         The Oval,England  won   51.369037   -2.378269

Happy Coding!