getHierarchiesByLatLon returned a blank/null item in the hierarchy

[simonw]

Using this query:

https://whosonfirst-api.mapzen.com/?spr=1&longitude=-122.2778261&extras=geom%3A&latitude=37.7970594&method=whosonfirst.places.getHierarchiesByLatLon&api_key=mapzen-...

I got back a hierarchy list that included this:

        "": {
            "wof:id": null,
            "wof:parent_id": null,
            "wof:name": null,
            "wof:placetype": null,
            "wof:country": null,
            "wof:repo": null
        }

The full response I got can be seen here: https://gist.github.com/simonw/1f385935f6746e7e376ec28ad5d5fa04

[thisisaaronland]

tl;dr - this is a by-product of stuff we do to accomodate CSV output, specifically ensuring that all the place records have the same keys so that the CSV headers/columns match.

The longer version is that we're starting with a response that looks like this:

{
  "hierarchies": [
    {
      "neighbourhood_id": 85872423,
      "continent_id": 102191575,
      "macrohood_id": "1108794093",
      "country_id": 85633793,
      "locality_id": 85921881,
      "county_id": 102086959,
      "region_id": 85688637
    },
    {
      "region_id": 85688637,
      "continent_id": 102191575,
      "country_id": 85633793,
      "locality_id": 85921881,
      "county_id": 102086959,
      "neighbourhood_id": 85886709,
      "macrohood_id": ""
    }
  ],
  "stat": "ok"
}

And WOF ID 85886709 is getting an empty macrohood_id key to have parity with WOF ID 85872423.

Either way, because WOF ID 85886709 has been superseded (and deprecated) we wouldn't re-assign it a new hierarchy anyway (think Sarajevo in 1988 versus Sarajevo in 2017).

But I agree, the end result is unsatisfying if you just want a blob of JSON. I will have a think about it...

[thisisaaronland]

Fixed.

CSV output:

curl -X GET 'https://whosonfirst-api.mapzen.com?method=whosonfirst.places.getHierarchiesByLatLon&api_key=mapzen-xxxxxx&latitude=37.7970594&longitude=-122.2778261&format=csv'

continent_id,country_id,county_id,locality_id,macrohood_id,neighbourhood_id,region_id
102191575,85633793,102086959,85921881,1108794093,85872423,85688637
102191575,85633793,102086959,85921881,,85886709,85688637

JSON output:

curl -X GET 'https://whosonfirst-api.mapzen.com?method=whosonfirst.places.getHierarchiesByLatLon&api_key=mapzen-xxxxxx&latitude=37.7970594&longitude=-122.2778261&format=json'

{
  "hierarchies": [
    {
      "neighbourhood_id": 85872423,
      "continent_id": 102191575,
      "macrohood_id": "1108794093",
      "country_id": 85633793,
      "locality_id": 85921881,
      "county_id": 102086959,
      "region_id": 85688637
    },
    {
      "region_id": 85688637,
      "continent_id": 102191575,
      "country_id": 85633793,
      "locality_id": 85921881,
      "county_id": 102086959,
      "neighbourhood_id": 85886709
    }
  ],
  "stat": "ok"
}