Using Parse Javascript SDK Query GeoPoint withinMiles

Question

I am creating a Parse App and I want to be able to get all objects within a certain distance of a single object using GeoPoints. Seems simple, but the following code returns [] (No matches):

app.get('/photos', function(req, res) {

   var Photo = Parse.Object.extend("Photo");

   var query = new Parse.Query(Photo);
   query.equalTo("owner", Parse.User.current());
   query.find({
     success: function(results) {
       // Do something with the returned Parse.Object values
       //res.send(results);
       var photo = results[0];

       // Create a query for places
      var Photo = Parse.Object.extend("Photo");
      var query = new Parse.Query(Photo);
      // Interested in photos taken near this photo.
      query.withinMiles("coordinates", photo.coordinates, 500000);

      // Final list of objects
      query.find({
        success: function(photoObjects) {
           res.send(photoObjects);
        },
        error: function(error) {
         alert("Error: " + error.code + " " + error.message);
        }
      });
     },
     error: function(error) {
       alert("Error: " + error.code + " " + error.message);
     }
   });
});

Oddly, if I change the line query.withinMiles("coordinates", photo.coordinates, 500000); to query.near("coordinates", photo.coordinates); then it works without a hitch and returns all photos (Every single one has a GeoPoint within about a 5 mile radius of all the others in the sample data set, so I used a maxDistance of 500000 to test the extent of the issue).

The problem is I need to be able to limit to a specific radius, which is what I thought the "withinMiles" was doing. Any ideas what I may be doing wrong?

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 30 '14 at 20:15

In case someone is finding this and shares my troubles, the following was the issue:

I was assuming that all "columns" of data objects in parse are treated as attributes. i.e. - You can access them using the . operator (photo.coordinates).

In fact, you must access them via photo.get("coordinates") to get the actual objects contained within the data structure.

Not sure why the above scenario was working in the case of the "near" function, but nonetheless the behavior works correctly when I started using the get accessor method for the Parse data objects.

Using Parse Javascript SDK Query GeoPoint withinMiles

1 Answers1