Ruby on Rails - Geocoder Better Forward and Reverse Geocoding

Question

I am using the Ruby Geocoder gem to perform forward and revers geocoding at the same time and have run into some issues. I have a Location model that has longitude and latitude fields as well as an address field. In the controller I allow the user to create a Location in two different ways, the first is by providing an address and letting Geocoder figure out the longitude and latitude, and the second is by providing the coordinates and having Geocoder determine the address. Below is the code from the Locations model that performs these tasks:

class Location < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :name, :presence =>true

  geocoded_by :address
  reverse_geocoded_by :latitude, :longitude
  after_validation :geocode, :reverse_geocode
end

This code is taken directly from the Ruby Geocoder gem website but doesn't work all that well. When I create a location using an address it seems to still perform the reverse_geocode as well. This generates the longitude and latitude from the original address then regenerates an address that is often incorrect. I am fairly new to Ruby on Rails and was wondering if there was a better way to do this. Perhaps there is a way to use the after_validation call back and a conditional to only geocode when there is an address is provided and only reverse geocode when the coordinates are provided? Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

In this link there is a good tutorial on this topic: Geocoder: Display Maps and Find Places in Rails

The bit that makes the geocoder and reverse_geocoder work in the same model is this:

[...]
after_validation :geocode, if: ->(obj){ obj.address.present? and obj.address_changed? }
after_validation :reverse_geocode, unless: ->(obj) { obj.address.present? },
                   if: ->(obj){ obj.latitude.present? and obj.latitude_changed? and obj.longitude.present? and obj.longitude_changed? }
[...]

It solves the problems of reverse geocoding if the coordinates were not provided or modified and performing both forward and reverse geocoding.