Why can't Google Maps static API handle my encoded URIs?

Question

I'm trying to integrate some Google maps bits into my Java web app using the Google Maps static API. For the moment I'm just trying to get a map, any map. Their example:

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=40.714728,-73.998672&zoom=12&size=400x400&sensor=false

works fine from my browser. However the Java HTTP client software I am using (the one from Apache's http components, version 4.0.2) insists that I encode my URIs, so I end up with this:

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center%3D40.714728%2C-73.998672%26zoom%3D12%26size%3D400x400%26sensor%3Dfalse

which doesn't work. I would happily not encode my URIs but the Apache client fails if I don't. So my question is how can I either:

• persuade Apache's client to use the plain URI or
• get the encoded URI into a form Google will accept

?

Answer 1

Only encode the parameters of the URI. Your first ?, then your = and your & shouldn't be URI encoded.

Your URI should be

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=40.714728%2C-73.998672&zoom=12&size=400x400&sensor=false

The only URI-encoded character is %2C, the , between your coordinates.

Answer 2

As Pekka suggested you need to leave to & and = unencoded.

Your encoded url

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center%3D40.714728%2C-73.998672%26zoom%3D12%26size%3D400x400%26sensor%3Dfalse

vs unencoded & (%26) and = (%3D) (working)

http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center=40.714728%2C-73.998672&zoom=12&size=400x400&sensor=false

Apache's HTTPComponents HTTP Client has a lot of interfaces with which you can build your request URL. To make sure that the proper parts of the URL are encoded I would suggest using this method:

List<NameValuePair> qparams = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();
qparams.add(new BasicNameValuePair("center", "40.714728,-73.998672"));
qparams.add(new BasicNameValuePair("zoom", "12"));
qparams.add(new BasicNameValuePair("size", "400x400"));
qparams.add(new BasicNameValuePair("sensor", "false"));
URI uri = URIUtils.createURI("http", "maps.google.com", -1, "/maps/api/staticmap", 
    URLEncodedUtils.format(qparams, "UTF-8"), null);
HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(uri);
System.out.println(httpget.getURI());

1. More example http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/tutorial/html/fundamentals.html
2. API Docs http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/httpclient/apidocs/index.html