How to search nearby places using Strapi without broking the query system

Hello folks, if you are there, it means that you have been looking for a way to make geo query using strapi unsuccessfully, in this article I will show you how to tacle it.

This article suppose you are able to run a Strapi project without any issue , so in this article we will be focused on how to handle a request like this http://localhost:1337/items?_latitude=3.888360&_longitude=11.51290&_distance=500 , basically we are trying to fetch all items 500 meters around the point (3.888360,11.51290).

To do so,let say we have created a model named “item”, you will need to save latitude and longitude of each items, so this is how my file /api/item/models/item.settings.json will look like :

{
    "kind": "collectionType",
    "collectionName": "items",
    "info": {
         "name": "Places",
         "description": ""
    },
    "options": {
        "increments": true,
        "timestamps": true,
       "draftAndPublish": true
    },
    "pluginOptions": {
        "i18n": {
            "localized": true
        }
    },
    "attributes": {
        "latitude": {
            "type": "float",
            "pluginOptions": {
            "i18n": {
                "localized": true
            }
        }
    },
        "longitude": {
            "type": "float",
            "pluginOptions": {
                "i18n": {
                    "localized": true
                }
           }
        }
    }
}

Now open you file /api/item/service/item.js

const { convertRestQueryParams, buildQuery } = require(‘strapi-utils’);

Override the find method:

module.exports = {
async find(params, populate, { transacting } = {}) {
const latitude=params._latitude;
const longitude=params._longitude;
const distance=params.distance;
const isGeoQuery = latitude && longitude && distance;
delete params._latitude;
delete params._longitude;
delete params.distance;
const distanceInMilesSql=`
ST_distance_sphere( point(latitude, longitude), point(${latitude}, ${longitude})) as distance`;
const knex = strapi.connections.default;
const filters = convertRestQueryParams(params);
const model = strapi.models.item;
const query = buildQuery({ model, filters });
return model
.query(qb=>{
if(isGeoQuery){
console.log('Is geo query');
qb.column(knex.raw(distanceInMilesSql));
qb.having('distance','<',distance);
qb.orderBy('distance');
}
query(qb);
})
.fetchAll({
withRelated: populate,
transacting,
publicationState: filters.publicationState,
})
.then(results => results.toJSON());
}

That is all, now you can query items around a specified point without broking the existing filter feature.