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Getting the users country
Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2023 6:46 pm
by andyh1234
Is there an easy way to get the users country from the app store or something similar within livecode ios.
Im working on an app that has a regional database, depending on which country the user is in and if possible I would like to pre-fill the country when I ask them as part of the user setup what country they are in.
Thanks
Andy
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 1:03 am
by stam
Hmmm, as far as I know LiveCode has no automatic way of doing this, but I may be wrong.
I'm pretty sure
no App Store will give you information on logged in users - but it is possible in Swift and other languages to get a country code associated with the App Store used. This is an informative post:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/493 ... re-country
how this can be applied in LC I'm not sure - but presumably if you're using the App Store to distribute, you may have access to the API.
Alternatively perhaps you could IP geocode users when using the app (although you'd need to clarify this in your EULA and/or seek consent).
If you did go down that route there are a number of alternatives -
https://radar.com/product/api?utm_term= ... HxEALw_wcB might be a good one as it's free for up to 100,000 API calls per month and seems relatively cheap if you exceed that limit. You could use its IP geocode API to get the user's location - but that assumes of course they are not on a VPN (but then they may well be using a different country's App Store).
Or you could just get this information directly from the user
I'm pretty sure most users are used to entering a country name - I certainly am
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 2:50 pm
by andyh1234
Thanks
Ive found a command mobileCurrentLocale() which gives a good indicator as to the country the user is in so this is a good starting point for my drop down box, I can detect a US or GB language and set the country initially to that, beyond that the user will have to select the country themselves.
Thanks for the help.
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 2:57 pm
by richmond62
"a US or GB language" ?
Let's see: US English, GB English, Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Spanish, Pennsylvania Dutch, Louisiana French, Gullah, . . .
What about other languages?
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 4:03 pm
by stam
richmond62 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 07, 2023 2:57 pm
"a US or GB language" ?
Let's see: US English, GB English, Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic, Spanish, Pennsylvania Dutch, Louisiana French, Gullah, . . .
What about other languages?
The OP wishes to pre-populate a database based on App Store location, with the user being able to fill in detail.
It's not a language thing. I'm guessing you just read the last sentence of the last post, didn't you?
How does the OP's question and aim apply to Welsh, Irish, Scots, Gaelic 'Louisiana French', Gullah (you really excelled yourself on that one...)? Is there a Gullah app store that I missed? Does this really help in any way?
As my great-grandma used to say:
don't feed the trolls, so I'll stop there...
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 4:33 pm
by richmond62
I wonder what the Gullah for 'troll' is?
How about getting the stack to determine the device's external IP address?
https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?t=29919
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 5:16 pm
by stam
Richmond, that was implied when I suggested one option is to IP geocode.
Getting the IP is not hard, it's what you do with it.
I linked an API that allows 100,000 free API calls for geolocation by IP per month - and assuming this is a process for initial installation/registration I can't really imagine that wouldn't suffice and be done entirely for free - but that does add a level of complexity which probably isn't needed as Andy is happy just to use the country code returned by the App Store.
Now if he wanted to automatically get City, State and Country then the IP geolocation API would be more useful...
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 5:28 pm
by richmond62
This works for Mac:
https://ipleak.net/
and on Android.
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2023 5:36 pm
by stam
yes - the API for that is found here:
https://airvpn.org/forums/topic/14737-api/
+ free, seems to work
- judging by forums, occasionally spotty performance
- less documentation/support than commercial service (even if free)
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 7:57 am
by richmond62
I wonder why this returns NOTHING when the original line refered to contains data?
Code: Select all
find "continent_name" in fld "dLIST"
put line (the foundLine) of fld "dLIST" into fld "bilad"
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:03 am
by richmond62
Mind you, if I could import a URL into a text field like this:
-
-
instead of like this:
-
-
'Life' would be a whole lot easier.
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:17 am
by stam
richmond62 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 7:57 am
I wonder why this returns NOTHING when the original line refered to contains data?
Code: Select all
find "continent_name" in fld "dLIST"
put line (the foundLine) of fld "dLIST" into fld "bilad"
the foundLine is a chunk expression, ie
line x of field y, but annoyingly if you try to use this directly (ie put the FoundLine into field "blah") it literally just puts "line x of field y" into field "blah".
So you could either change your code to:
Code: Select all
put line (word 2 of the foundLine) of fld "dLIST" into fld "bilad"
or just get it's value:
Code: Select all
put value(the foundLine) into fld "bilad"
As usual my preference is different: Since the data returned is in JSON format, which is basically a textual representation of a multidimensional array, I would prefer to put this into an array and get it's key - no need to faff around with extra and unnecessary fields and no need to 'clean' the text.
Code: Select all
on mouseUp
local tArray
put JSONToArray(URL ("https://ipleak.net/json/")) into tArray
put tArray["continent_name"] into field 1
end mouseUp
This is cleaner; the text method you describe populates field "bilad" with
"continent_name": "Europe"
Wheres the array just it returns the value and populates the field with
Europe
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:19 am
by richmond62
As usual my preference is different
Your value in my eyes would have dropped considerably had it not been.
HOWEVER . . . my mind has wandered to the question I posted just before your reply.
After all, if Mac's 'happy, little' TextEdit can do that, surely LC can do that as well.
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:29 am
by stam
richmond62 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:03 am
Mind you, if I could import a URL into a text field like this:
<snip>
'Life' would be a whole lot easier.
Ermm... are you just scraping the HTML?
You do realise they provide an API for easy developer access so you don't have to scape the HTML? The JSON I mentioned?
Did you spot the code I used:
Code: Select all
put JSONToArray(URL ("https://ipleak.net/json/")) into tArray
ipleak.net
/json/ is key
The text you get back is in JSON format:
JSON wrote:{
"as_number": 15404,
"isp_name": "COLT Technology Services Group Limited",
"country_code": "GB",
"country_name": "United Kingdom",
"region_code": "ENG",
"region_name": "England",
"continent_code": "EU",
"continent_name": "Europe",
"city_name": "London",
"postal_code": null,
"postal_confidence": null,
"latitude": 51.5088,
"longitude": -0.093,
"accuracy_radius": 10,
"time_zone": "Europe\/London",
"metro_code": null,
"level": "min",
"cache": 1691487314,
"ip": "161.17.0.123",
"reverse": "",
"query_text": "161.17.0.123",
"query_type": "myip",
"query_date": 1691487314
}
(don't care about sharing details here as its the public wifi at my workplace)
Re: Getting the users country
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2023 10:39 am
by richmond62
That is fantastic: thank you so, very, very much.
Ermm... are you just scraping the HTML?
More like 'scraping the barrel' in my case: or, put another way: Richmond's ignorance in matters such as JSON.