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HI ALL.
If you go to a directory website you will be able to search via location (say for a business). I need to create a geographic search engine. so far i have a solution to this problem and wanted some feedback on it, OR a better solution.
For examples sake lets consider America as the country we’re using. First I would print off a map of America and create an even grid on there using a pen. Each cell in the grid obviously has a (x,y) coordinate. A x,y cell will represent a group of surrounding suburbs, so in my DB cell x,y will contain a list of suburbs that fall within the cell on the map. Therefore the resolution of the grid must be refined because if its too large then the engine will return far-away suburbs.
So we have a country divided into grids – each grid has suburbs. When a suburb is searched for it returns all other suburbs within its cell … and even the neighboring cells (if user wants it like that- again depending on the grid resolution).
Obviously the admin (or me) will not be able to enter in all possible surburbs pre-launch so i figure each time a person joins the site with an unknown suburb an email is sent to admin, admin has to figure out which cell the suburb belongs in and enters into DB for that cell.
You will need to distinguish surburbs using a postcode (zip code) as a secondary identifier incase > 1 suburbs exist of the same name.
PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU DIDNT UNDERSTAND SO I CAN RE-EXPLAIN. but for now i just need feedback feedback feedback!!!!
appreciate your help coders!
Blazer1