How to do a geoip lookup in php?

Question

All tutorials I have seen have pointed towards functions like geoip_record_by_name. I always get this error: Fatal error: Call to undefined function geoip_record_by_name() in /home/<acct>/public_html/geoip.php on line <line>

I'm on "shared" hosting, meaning I don't have access to install the PECL geoip extension.

What are other (free!) ways to perform geoip lookups? Preferably ones which don't depend on an external service?

Answer 1

If you have MySQL server, there are IP databases that you can use and install for free, then do a $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] and run it against the database data.

i.e. (based on some arbitrary db)

<?php

    $result = mysql_query("SELECT *
                          FROM ips
                          WHERE ip = {$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']}
                          LIMIT 1") or die(mysql_error());

    $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);

    $city = $row['city'];
    $state = $row['state'];
    $country = $row['country'];

?>

Some databases(Or just google it): http://www.ipinfodb.com/ip_database.php

EDIT

You can also do JSON/XML requests from other APIs and parse the data:

i.e. (Using ipinfodb.com again)

$doc->loadXML(file_get_contents("http://api.ipinfodb.com/v2/ip_query.php?key=your_key&ip=" . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] . "&timezone=false")); 

$country = $doc->getElementsByTagName('CountryName')->item(0)->nodeValue;