PHP Sorting nearest coordinates

Question

I have a MySQL table in a PHP webservice containing longitude and latitude. I want to send the user only the, let\'s say, 5 closest coordinates. I wrote the method which cal

Answer 1

Using Google's algorithm:

$lon = //your longitude
$lat = //your latitude
$miles = //your search radius

$query = "SELECT *, 
( 3959 * acos( cos( radians('$lat') ) * 
cos( radians( latitude ) ) * 
cos( radians( longitude ) - 
radians('$lon') ) + 
sin( radians('$lat') ) * 
sin( radians( latitude ) ) ) ) 
AS distance FROM yourtable HAVING distance < '$miles' ORDER BY distance ASC LIMIT 0, 5"

latitude and longitude in this query are going to be your lat/lon column names.