niemeyer Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 (edited) Is it possible to query the location of a given cache ID programatically (without screen-scrapping)? Thanks Edited March 14, 2007 by niemeyer Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'm not sure what you are asking, but I think the answer is 'pocket queries'. Quote Link to comment
+Too Tall John Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'm not sure what you are asking, but I think the answer is 'pocket queries'. ... or just .loc files. Although I'm not exactly sure if I know what you are asking either... Quote Link to comment
niemeyer Posted March 14, 2007 Author Share Posted March 14, 2007 Sorry, let me try to be more clear. I'm asking for a way to automatically (with software) get the position (read, latitude and longitude) of a given cache ID (say, GC1234). Would anyone know if this is possible? Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 (edited) Sorry, let me try to be more clear. I'm asking for a way to automatically (with software) get the position (read, latitude and longitude) of a given cache ID (say, GC1234). Would anyone know if this is possible? Premium members can download up to 500 caches using pocket queries. I don't think that an automated program to obtain cache information would be allowed by the terms of service. Edited March 14, 2007 by sbell111 Quote Link to comment
+knoffer Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 Sorry, let me try to be more clear. I'm asking for a way to automatically (with software) get the position (read, latitude and longitude) of a given cache ID (say, GC1234). Would anyone know if this is possible? Pocket Queries and GSAK. Quote Link to comment
+Kryten Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 There is a present no API that programmers can use to interrogate the site although it was hinted a while ago that that such a thing was in development. Screen scraping is frowned upon and against the terms of use. Quote Link to comment
+StarBrand Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'll bet that the OP is trying to create an app to grab the coordinates of a new cache he sees in an instant notification. TPTB have good valid reasons for wanting you to visit the website to obtain that information. Quote Link to comment
+DocDiTTo Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 (edited) In order to get coordinates for a waypoint you'd need to browse to a URL like this: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GCW7HZ That would bring up the cache page, and the coordinates would be on there if you were logged in. Once the cache page's HTML data is downloaded to your computer you could read it an extract the coordinates out of it programatically. Creating a program to loop through a lot a waypoints and download them just to get coordinates in this manner is potentially a violation of the terms of use, and might result in your IP being banned from accessing the website. Pocket queries are a much faster, more reliable, and "legal" way of getting the same data. Edited March 14, 2007 by DocDiTTo Quote Link to comment
niemeyer Posted March 14, 2007 Author Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'll bet that the OP is trying to create an app to grab the coordinates of a new cache he sees in an instant notification. TPTB have good valid reasons for wanting you to visit the website to obtain that information. You've lost the bet. ;-) I would just like to have that information available in a site, with a link pointing to the actual cache information in GC.com. I don't think this would be threatening GC in any way, since the service provided here is valuable enough to highly encourage anyone interested to actually visit the site, and grab additional information. I also wouldn't have an index of all cache IDs, which means I can't just "steal" information and run away (there are better ways to do it, if that was the intent). Would anyone know the mail of technical people in geocaching.com whom I might talk to about this? Thanks! Quote Link to comment
+StarBrand Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'll bet that the OP is trying to create an app to grab the coordinates of a new cache he sees in an instant notification. TPTB have good valid reasons for wanting you to visit the website to obtain that information. You've lost the bet. ;-) I would just like to have that information available in a site, with a link pointing to the actual cache information in GC.com. I don't think this would be threatening GC in any way, since the service provided here is valuable enough to highly encourage anyone interested to actually visit the site, and grab additional information. I also wouldn't have an index of all cache IDs, which means I can't just "steal" information and run away (there are better ways to do it, if that was the intent). Would anyone know the mail of technical people in geocaching.com whom I might talk to about this? Thanks! Ok - how about the reverse - provide coordinates of a location and see all nearby caches via a link? Take a look at my airports utility at http://www.wnag.net/airports Quote Link to comment
+Prime Suspect Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'll bet that the OP is trying to create an app to grab the coordinates of a new cache he sees in an instant notification. TPTB have good valid reasons for wanting you to visit the website to obtain that information. You've lost the bet. ;-) I would just like to have that information available in a site, with a link pointing to the actual cache information in GC.com. I don't think this would be threatening GC in any way, since the service provided here is valuable enough to highly encourage anyone interested to actually visit the site, and grab additional information. I also wouldn't have an index of all cache IDs, which means I can't just "steal" information and run away (there are better ways to do it, if that was the intent). Would anyone know the mail of technical people in geocaching.com whom I might talk to about this? Thanks! You can find a contact link at the bottom of every page on the GC site. But I can tell you now - IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 I would just like to have that information available in a site, with a linkpointing to the actual cache information in GC.com. I don't think this would be threatening GC in any way, since the service provided here is valuable enough to highly encourage anyone interested to actually visit the site, and grab additional information. I also wouldn't have an index of all cache IDs, which means I can't just "steal" information and run away (there are better ways to do it, if that was the intent). Would anyone know the mail of technical people in geocaching.com whom I might talk to about this? Thanks! I'm pretty certain that your use would violate the terms of service. Quote Link to comment
niemeyer Posted March 14, 2007 Author Share Posted March 14, 2007 I'm pretty certain that your use would violate the terms of service. Hey, I'm not trying to "sneak" anything in, and that's why I'm asking here. I won't be doing any screen-scrapping to retrieve information in an unsupported way. If GC.com is not interested, even though it'd be actually giving them more traffic, I won't include that feature, and that's all. Quote Link to comment
+sbell111 Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 You should shoot an email to the contact address and lay out exactly what you want to do. Maybe they will give you permission. Quote Link to comment
+Gator Man Posted March 14, 2007 Share Posted March 14, 2007 If you could figure out GC.COM's GC naming scheme, you could endlessly query near-future schema assignments for the whole world, then filter for your proximity coords, then stay up 24 hours a day....... Quote Link to comment
+Retcon Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 If you could figure out GC.COM's GC naming scheme, you could endlessly query near-future schema assignments for the whole world, then filter for your proximity coords, then stay up 24 hours a day....... No, just make it play a really loud sound file to wake you up. It'd be like the Ghostbusters. Alarm goes off, you and your friends jump out of bed, slide down a pole, get in your geomobile and are off! Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 If you could figure out GC.COM's GC naming scheme, you could endlessly query near-future schema assignments for the whole world, then filter for your proximity coords.... Funny. That sounds exactly like a notification service someone had set up a few years ago to email you when a new cache was placed nearby Groundspeak finally got tired of the screen scraping abuse and banned the guy's account and IP address Fortunately Groundspeak released their own notification service a few months later Quote Link to comment
niemeyer Posted March 15, 2007 Author Share Posted March 15, 2007 I am sorry but at this time we are not allowing access to the site from outside web sites by API or any other method. Thank you for asking. Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns. Game over. Quote Link to comment
+bflentje Posted March 15, 2007 Share Posted March 15, 2007 Conclusion understood. But I think what you might be asking for is a Web Service. Amazon.com has a web service for free use which is pretty darn cool. Quote Link to comment
+Markwell Posted March 16, 2007 Share Posted March 16, 2007 Doesn't this fit the bill? http://wap.geocaching.com/ Quote Link to comment
+ScaredOfBees Posted March 17, 2007 Share Posted March 17, 2007 (edited) Doesn't this fit the bill? http://wap.geocaching.com/ Is that accessible from the homepage? Or is it a secret backdoor? I like secret back doors! Edited March 17, 2007 by ScaredOfBees Quote Link to comment
+Prime Suspect Posted March 18, 2007 Share Posted March 18, 2007 (edited) Doesn't this fit the bill? http://wap.geocaching.com/ Is that accessible from the homepage? Or is it a secret backdoor? I like secret back doors! Yes, it's so secret, it's had its own pinned forum thread for the last year and a half. Edited March 18, 2007 by Prime Suspect Quote Link to comment
+ScaredOfBees Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 Doesn't this fit the bill? http://wap.geocaching.com/ Is that accessible from the homepage? Or is it a secret backdoor? I like secret back doors! Yes, it's so secret, it's had its own pinned forum thread for the last year and a half. Ah! Interface for the cell phone. No wonder I skipped over it. I can hardly get my cell phone to make phone calls, let alone web browse. Quote Link to comment
+sTeamTraen Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 I would just like to have that information available in a site, with a linkpointing to the actual cache information in GC.com. I don't think this would be threatening GC in any way, since the service provided here is valuable enough to highly encourage anyone interested to actually visit the site, and grab additional information. I also wouldn't have an index of all cache IDs, which means I can't just "steal" information and run away (there are better ways to do it, if that was the intent). I'm pretty certain that your use would violate the terms of service. I'm not so sure. Have a look at the French national site, which AFAIK has been passed kosher by Groundspeak. It only hosts info which is available in the .LOC files. Click on one of the cache names to the right of the map of France to see what I mean. Quote Link to comment
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