How can I determine a CLLocation or MKPlacemark from an address?

Question

I've seen API documentation and demo after demo on how to do a reverse geocode - to get an address, given a Lat/Long location. I need to do the reverse. I'm assuming that this is already solved problem since Apple's MapKit API avoids it entirely.

Answer 1

One way is to use the google webservice like so:

-(CLLocationCoordinate2D) addressLocation {
    NSString *urlString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q=%@&output=csv", 
                           [addressField.text stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]];
    NSString *locationString = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:urlString]];
    NSLog(@"locationString = %@",locationString);

    NSArray *listItems = [locationString componentsSeparatedByString:@","];

    double latitude = 0.0;
    double longitude = 0.0;
    if([listItems count] >= 4 && [[listItems objectAtIndex:0] isEqualToString:@"200"]) {
        latitude = [[listItems objectAtIndex:2] doubleValue];
        longitude = [[listItems objectAtIndex:3] doubleValue];
/*      
        NSString *nameString = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"http://ws.geonames.org/findNearestAddress?lat=%f&lng=%f",latitude,longitude];
        NSString *placeName = [NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:nameString]];
        NSLog(@"placeName = %@",placeName);
 */
    }
    else {
        //Show error
    }
    CLLocationCoordinate2D location;
    location.latitude = latitude;
    location.longitude = longitude;

    return location;

}