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Build Your Own Foursquare! Develop GeoSpatial Apps with

Zend, MongoDB and OpenShift

Steven Citron-PoustyPaaS Dust Spreader, Red Hat@TheSteve0

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Agenda

• Learn a little spatial

• Load some spatial data into mongo

• Do a query or two

SIGN UP CODE: zendcon

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Git repo for the data and code

https://github.com/thesteve0/parks-php-zf2

Please remember the point here is not that this is great PHP or ZF2 code. This is mostly to show you how to do spatial queries in mongo through PHP. The main file with that code is:

https://github.com/thesteve0/parks-php-zf2/blob/master/module/Application/src/Application/Controller/IndexController.php

The data file is in the root dir and is called parks.json

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Assumptions

1) You can use the command line

2) You are comfortable with Mongo command line

3) Please ask questions – though since there are things I really want to cover, they may have to wait until the end or after the session

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What is OpenShift?

Red Hat’s free platform as a service for applications in the cloud.

6 Dalbera on Flickr

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Kind of like Amazon, right? Nope.

8Cook24v on Flickr

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What’s supported?

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There’s more? What’s the catch?

• OpenShift is free-as-in-beer & free-as-in-freedom

• Three 512 MB RAM / 1 GB storage gears

• Need more resources, just ask!

• We are really in Developer Preview

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On to spatial!

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Spatial is fun

The only spatial functionality Mongo currently has is:

1) Near

2) Containment

All of it is laid out on one page:

http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Geospatial+Indexing

First link on a google search for “mongodb spatial indexing”

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Caveats

1. Assumes coords. are between -180 and 180

2. Can handle any 2D coordinates

3. Has methods to handle curvature of the earth (spherical)

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How to make it work

1) Put your coordinates into an arrary{ loc : [ 50 , 30 ] } //SUGGESTED OPTION

{ loc : { x : 50 , y : 30 } }

{ loc : { foo : 50 , y : 30 } }

{ loc : { lon : 40.739037, lat: 73.992964 } }

2) Make a 2d index

db.places.ensureIndex( { loc : "2d" } )

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Demo

1. I have an app and a mongo instance running

2. Load some spatial data in JSON format

3. Make the 2d index

4. Do some fun spatial and mongoDB work

5. Show some PHP code that takes advantage of it

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Conclusion

1. Spatial is easy and fun on Mongo with PHP

2. You can now build your own FourSquare or other checkin application.

3. You can also build your own field data entry system.

4. You can build and deploy your application quickly without having to think about infrastructure.

SIGN UP CODE: zendcon

http://openshift.redhat.com