GeoRedis

Note: Requires a Redis server to be accessible to your Node environment.
Note: Will use native Redis geo commands if they are available, and fallback to an emulation if not available.

This Node module provides comprehensive location management and queries to all your special projects. More specifically:

• Basic management (addition, querying and removal) of sets of named geo locations.
• Fast querying of nearby locations to a point/member within a set. Fast like redis is fast.
• Sort, limit, and get location and distance information of nearby query results.
• Defaults to use native Redis geo commands if available (means extra performance!), but falls back to emulation otherwise.
• A simple, easy to use, scalable interface.

Other bonuses:

• Supports node-redis and ioredis modules. fakeredis is unofficially supported.
• Compatible input/output with the popular GeoLib module for further manipulation.

Read more about how this module works.

Installation

npm install --save georedis

Basic Usage

Usage of this module should be extremely simple. Just make sure that your Redis server is accessible to your Node environment. Because this module uses Redis as a store, almost all methods have integrated error handling for queries.

Include and Initialize

Include and initialize this module with a redis client instance.

var redis = require('redis'),
    client = redis.createClient()
 
var geo = require('georedis').initialize(client)

Add Locations

Add locations individually:

geo.addLocation('Toronto', {latitude: 43.6667, longitude: -79.4167}, function(err, reply){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('added location:', reply)
})

If you have a large set you'd like to add in bulk, there's a much quicker way:

var locationSet = {
  'Toronto': {latitude: 43.6667, longitude: -79.4167},
  'Philadelphia': {latitude: 39.9523, longitude: -75.1638},
  'Palo Alto': {latitude: 37.4688, longitude: -122.1411},
  'San Francisco': {latitude: 37.7691, longitude: -122.4449},
  'St. John\'s': {latitude: 47.5500, longitude: -52.6667},
  'New York': {latitude: 40.7143, longitude: -74.0060},
  'Twillingate': {latitude: 49.6500, longitude: -54.7500},
  'Ottawa': {latitude: 45.4167, longitude: -75.7000},
  'Calgary': {latitude: 51.0833, longitude: -114.0833},
  'Mumbai': {latitude: 18.9750, longitude: 72.8258}
}
 
geo.addLocations(locationSet, function(err, reply){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('added locations:', reply)
})

Recall the Coordinates of a Location

geo.location('Toronto', function(err, location){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('Location for Toronto is: ', location.latitude, location.longitude)
})

Or for multiple locations:

geo.locations(['Toronto', 'Philadelphia', 'Palo Alto', 'San Francisco', 'Ottawa'], function(err, locations){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else {
    for(var locationName in locations){
      console.log(locationName + "'s location is:", locations[locationName].latitude, locations[locationName].longitude)
    }
  }
})

Search for Nearby Locations

Now you can look for locations that exist approximately within a certain distance of any particular coordinate in the system. This method will return an Array of location names [locationNameA, locationNameB, locationNameC].

// look for all points within ~5000m of Toronto.
geo.nearby({latitude: 43.646838, longitude: -79.403723}, 5000, function(err, locations){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('nearby locations:', locations)
})

Or, if you're more particular about how you'd like your results returned, pass in some options. Note that by passing in options, the method will return an Array of location objects of the form {key: locationName, latitude: 47.6838, longitude: -79.403, distance: 287.22 ... etc} etc.

var options = {
  withCoordinates: true, // Will provide coordinates with locations, default false
  withHashes: true, // Will provide a 52bit Geohash Integer, default false
  withDistances: true, // Will provide distance from query, default false
  order: 'ASC', // or 'DESC' or true (same as 'ASC'), default false
  units: 'm', // or 'km', 'mi', 'ft', default 'm'
  count: 100, // Number of results to return, default undefined
  accurate: true // Useful if in emulated mode and accuracy is important, default false
}
 
// look for all points within ~5000m of Toronto with the options.
geo.nearby({latitude: 43.646838, longitude: -79.403723}, 5000, options, function(err, locations){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('nearby locations:', locations)
})

If you know the name of a location that you'd like to do a nearby search within, instead of passing in a point, just pass in a locationName as the first argument:

geo.nearby('Toronto', 5000, options, function(err, locations){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('nearby locations:', locations)
})

Remove Locations

Of course you may need to remove some points from your set as users/temporary events/whatever no longer are part of the set.

geo.removeLocation('New York', function(err, reply){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('removed location:', reply)
})
 
// OR Quicker for Bulk Removals
geo.removeLocations(['New York', 'St. John\'s', 'San Francisco'], function(err, reply){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('removed locations', reply)
})

Advanced Usage

Initializing with Options

You can initialize georedis with a specific redis client instance, but you can also specify a ZSET name to use when storing/querying locations instead of the default geo:locations. If you want to force using emulated mode even if your redis server supports native geo commands, just set nativeGeo to false.

var redis = require('redis'),
    client = redis.createClient()
 
var geo = require('georedis').initialize(client, {
  zset: 'mySpecialLocationsSet',
  nativeGeo: false
})

Multiple Sets

If you have different sets of coordinates, you can store and query them separately by adding a new set.

Create Sets

var people = geo.addSet('people')
var places = geo.addSet('places')

Add Locations to Different Sets

var peopleLocations = {
  'John': {latitude: 43.6667, longitude: -79.4167},
  'Shankar': {latitude: 39.9523, longitude: -75.1638},
  'Cynthia': {latitude: 37.4688, longitude: -122.1411},
  'Chen': {latitude: 37.7691, longitude: -122.4449}
}
 
var placeLocations  = {
  'Toronto': {latitude: 43.6667, longitude: -79.4167},
  'Philadelphia': {latitude: 39.9523, longitude: -75.1638},
  'Palo Alto': {latitude: 37.4688, longitude: -122.1411},
  'San Francisco': {latitude: 37.7691, longitude: -122.4449},
  'St. John\'s': {latitude: 47.5500, longitude: -52.6667}
}
 
people.addLocations(peopleLocations, function(err, reply){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('added people:', reply)
})
 
places.addLocations(placeLocations, function(err, reply){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('added places:', reply)
})

Look for Nearby Locations In Different Sets

// will find all PEOPLE ~5000m from the passed in coordinate
people.nearby({latitude: 43.646838, longitude: -79.403723}, 5000, function(err, people){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('people nearby:', people)
})
 
// will find all PLACES ~5000m from the passed in coordinate
places.nearby({latitude: 43.646838, longitude: -79.403723}, 5000, function(err, places){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('places nearby:', places)
})

The locationSet Property

Because javascript doesn't guarantee sorted sets, it makes more sense for the nearby method to by default be an Array. But you can convert this array to an object by simply using the locationSet property on the returned Array.

geo.nearby('Toronto', 5000, options, function(err, locations){
  if(err) console.error(err)
  else console.log('nearby locations as a Set:', locations.locationSet)
})

This object will have the form:

{
  'locationNameA': {
    latitude: xx,
    longitude: xx,
    distance: xx
  },
  'locationNameB': {
    latitude: xx,
    longitude: xx,
    distance: xx
  },
  // etc...
}

Delete Sets

If you no longer need one of your newly created sets, you can just delete it. Either of the following methods will remove the set from redis and destroy its contents. If you add locations to that set again it will recreate the set on redis and you can use as usual.

// will delete the people set and its contents
people.delete()
 
// OR
geo.deleteSet('people')

API

geo.initialize(redisClient, options)

Initialize the module with a redis client.

Options

• zset String: Default geo:locations. Set this option to specify a zset name to use to store location values.
• nativeGeo Boolean: Default true if Redis supports geo commands, false if not. Force to false if you don't want to make use of native geo commands for some reason. Forcing to true on non-supported versions of redis will likely cause errors.

var geo = require('georedis').initialize(client, {
  zset: 'locations',
  nativeGeo: false
})

geo.addSet(setName)

This method will return a subset that can be queried and hold a unique set of locations from the main set. It will store these new locations in a new redis zset with a unique name related to the parent set (eg. geo:locations:people).

geo.deleteSet(setName, callBack)

This method will delete a subset and its contents. You should use the callBack to check for errors or to wait for confirmation that the set is deleted, but this is probably not necessary.

geo.addLocation(locationName, point, callBack)

Add a new coordinate to your set.

geo.addLocations(locationSet, callBack)

Adds a set of new coordinates to your set. Use this method for bulk additions, as it is much faster than individual adds. The locationSet must be in the form:

var locationSet = {
  'locationA': {latitude: locationA_latitude, longitude: locationA_lattude},
  'locationB': {latitude: locationB_latitude, longitude: locationB_lattude},
  'locationC': {latitude: locationC_latitude, longitude: locationC_lattude}
}

geo.updateLocation(locationName, point, callBack)

Update a coordinate to your set.

geo.updateLocations(locationSet, callBack)

Same syntax as addLocations. Updates all locations passed.

geo.location(locationName, callBack)

Retrieve the latitude and longitude of a specific named location. Returns an object with name, latitude and longitude properties. latitude and longitude will be null if the location does not exist.

geo.locations(locationNameArray, callBack)

Retrieve the latitude and longitude of a list of specific named locations. Returns a set of objects with location names as property names, each with latitude and longitude properties. latitude and longitude will be null if the location does not exist.

geo.removeLocation(locationName, callBack)

Remove the specified coordinate by name.

geo.removeLocations(locationNameArray, callBack)

Remove a set of coordinates by name. locationNameArray must be of the form [nameA,nameB,nameC,...,nameN].

geo.distance(locationNameA, locationNameB, {options}, callBack)

Get the distance between two locations. Takes two locationNames, and returns the distance between.

Options

• units String: Default 'm'. Instead of returning distance in meters, return the distance in a unit of your choice: ['m', km', 'mi', 'ft'].

geo.delete(callBack)

Removes all locations and deletes the zSet from Redis. You should use the callBack to check for errors or to wait for confirmation that the set is deleted, but this is probably not necessary.

geo.nearby(point|locationName, distance, {options}, callBack)

First argument can either be an Object with latitude and longitude, or a String of the locationName. Returns an Array of either locationNames (if no extra properties are needed) or locations (if optional properties are requested in options).

Options

• units String: Default 'm'. Will consider these units for all distance related data.
• withCoordinates Boolean: Default false. Will provide latitude and longitude properties to returned locations.
• withDistances Boolean: Default false. Will provide distance property with the distance this point is from the queried point.
• withHashes Boolean: Default false. Will provide a hash property containing a base32 geohash to the returned locations.
• order String|Boolean: Default false. Will order the nearby locations Array by distance from the queried point. true|'ASC' or 'DESC'.
• accurate Boolean: Default false. If your Redis server doesn't have native geo commands, you can enable this option to ensure that results are within the queried distance.
• count Number: Default unlimited. If you'd like to limit the results to a certain number, you can. Note that this is not guaranteed to necessarily reduce compulational load at all.

geo.radius(point|locationName, radius, {options}, callBack)

The same as geo.nearby except that the accurate option is always true.

License

The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Arjun Mehta