NAME

Image::Maps::Plot::FromPostcode - from postcodes plot world/regional maps in JPEG/HTML


DESCRIPTION

This module is a sub-class of Image::Maps::Plot::FromLatLong, that uses the WWW::MapBlast module to convert postcodes to latitude and longitude.


OVER-RIDDEN METHODS

METHOD add_entry

A method that accepts: $name, $country, $postcode

Looks up on MapBlast.com the supplied details, and adds them to the db.

If an entry already exists for $name, will return undef unless the global scalar $ADDENTRY is set to it's default value of MULTIPLE, in which case $name will be appended with $country and $postcode.

Does not save them to file - you must do that manually (METHOD save_db), but note that you may wish to load the db before adding to it and saving.

Incidentaly returns a reference to the new key.

See also ADDING MAPS.

&remove_entry

A subroutine, not a method, that accepts the name field of the entry in the db, and returns 1 on success, undef if no such entry exists.


BACKGROUND

I was bored and got this message on a list:

        From: london.pm-admin@london.pm.org
        [mailto:london.pm-admin@london.pm.org]On Behalf Of Philip Newton
        Sent: 21 June 2001 11:44
        To: 'london.pm@london.pm.org'
        Subject: Re: headers
        Simon Wistow wrote:
        > It's more a collection of people who have the common connection
        > that they live and london and like perl.
        > In fact neither of those actually have to be true since I personally
        > know two people on the list who don't program Perl and one of whom
        > doesn't even live in London.
        How many off-London people have we got? (Well, also excluding people who
        live near London.)
        From outside the UK, there's Damian, dha, Paul M, I; Lucy and lathos
        probably also qualify as far as I can tell. Marcel used to work in London
        (don't know whether he still does). Anyone else?
        Cheers,
        Philip
        --
        Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@datenrevision.de>
        All opinions are my own, not my employer's.
        If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

In the twenty-second weekly summary of the London Perl Mongers mailing list, for the week starting 2001-06-18:

        In other news: ... a london.pm world map ...

Hence the module. At that time there were no maps to plot from postcodes.


REVSIONS

  1. Made this a sub-class of the new *::FromLatLong to remove what has, for me personally, become redundent functionality. Interface remains unchanged, I think.

  2. 2

    Corrected a slight mis-positioning of points.

    Replaced GD with Image::Magick as I was seeing terrible JPEG output with GD.

    Replaced support for non-maintained Image::GD::Thumbnail with Image::Thumbnail.

    Added methods to create just images and to return references to image blobs.