PHP - Get Latitude & Longitude from an address

Using CURL

<?php
$address = "Kathmandu, Nepal";
$url = "http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=".urlencode($address);

$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);    
$responseJson = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

$response = json_decode($responseJson);

if ($response->status == 'OK') {
    $latitude = $response->results[0]->geometry->location->lat;
    $longitude = $response->results[0]->geometry->location->lng;

    echo 'Latitude: ' . $latitude;
    echo '<br />';
    echo 'Longitude: ' . $longitude;
} else {
    echo $response->status;
    var_dump($response);
}    
?>

Suppose you have hidden value for lat and long is mapLat & mapLong and input field name is location then:

<html>
<form>
<input type="hidden" name="mapLat">
<input type="hidden" name="mapLong">
<input type="text" name="location">
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit">
</form>
</html>



extract($_POST);
if($mapLat =='' && $mapLong ==''){
        // Get lat long from google
        $latlong    =   get_lat_long($location); // create a function with the name "get_lat_long" given as below
        $map        =   explode(',' ,$latlong);
        $mapLat         =   $map[0];
        $mapLong    =   $map[1];    
}


// function to get  the address
function get_lat_long($address){

    $address = str_replace(" ", "+", $address);

    $json = file_get_contents("http://maps.google.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=$address&sensor=false&region=$region");
    $json = json_decode($json);

    $lat = $json->{'results'}[0]->{'geometry'}->{'location'}->{'lat'};
    $long = $json->{'results'}[0]->{'geometry'}->{'location'}->{'lng'};
    return $lat.','.$long;
}