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Geocoder is a full-featured geocoding library for Ruby that integrates seamlessly with Rails applications. It enables converting addresses into geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) and vice versa, known as reverse geocoding. The gem supports multiple geocoding services like Google, Bing, Mapbox, and OpenStreetMap, letting developers choose based on cost or coverage. Beyond simple geocoding, Geocoder can perform IP address lookups, distance queries, and proximity searches directly in ActiveRecord or Mongoid models. With its database integration, you can query for nearby records, order results by distance, or filter results within a radius, making it invaluable for location-based apps. By abstracting away API differences and providing a clean Ruby interface, Geocoder makes geospatial features straightforward to implement in web and mobile projects.
Features
- Forward geocoding (address → coordinates) using many providers
- Reverse geocoding (coordinates → nearest address)
- Support for caching results to minimize repeated external requests
- Distance calculations, querying objects “near” a given coordinate, handling units (km, miles) etc.
- Pluggable geocoding providers; ability to specify which service to use, customization of API keys, timeouts, etc.
- Integration with Rails / ActiveRecord scopes to allow queries like Model.near(...) etc.
Project Samples
