Google geocode format issue. Receiving undefined offset error - google-api

Question

I get this PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 0 on line 9. It is regarding the Google Geocode API in the code provided below.
An undefined offset error occurs when you try to reference an array value at position 0 but that position doesnt exist. I am assuming the Google geocode API has changed within the last year. As it must be returning a different result structure then the one originally programmed with. However, although I know this, I cannot find anything wrong with the code. Does anyone know if the format of my code is incorrect?
The code below pulls the country and town fields from an input form. The Google Geocode works out the lat and lng of the town, then feeds this to the timezone API to calculate the timezone. I have hidden my API key for security purposes. Any help is appreciated. Thank you.
<?php
$town = urldecode($_GET['town']);
$country = urldecode($_GET['country']);
if(!empty($_GET['state'])){
$state = urldecode($_GET['state']);
}
$location = json_decode(#file_get_contents('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?key=API_KEY_HERE&address='.urlencode($town.', '.(!empty($state) ? $state.', ' : '').$country)), true)['results'][0]['geometry']['location'];
$timezone = json_decode(#file_get_contents('https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/timezone/json?key=API_KEY_HERE&location='.$location['lat'].','.$location['lng'].'&timestamp='.date('U')), true);
$time = $timezone['rawOffset'] / 60 / 60;
echo $time;
?>

Answer 1

This part of your code is where the problem is:
)['results'][0]['geometry']['location']
You're assuming that there will always be a result at position 0 (the first item). In the case of an error the results array will be empty, and thus no result at position 0.
The API result structure hasn't changed. Google wouldn't do that, as it would break a LOT of applications. It's more likely that a particular set of inputs, such as an invalid address, are giving an error response.
Take a look at the documentation here. Pay attention to the "status" field, which contains a variety of status codes. You should modify your code to only try to get the item from the result if the status is "OK".
On the time zone side of things, you should check the status code there as well. (Here are the docs.) Then in most cases, you should take the timeZoneId rather than the rawOffset. You can use that ID with PHP's built-in time zone functionality (DateTime, DateTimeZone classes, etc.).