PHP String Encoding Error

Question

I am trying to get the following code to output an IMG tag with the Google Static Maps API URL http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/staticmaps/#Imagesizes built in there ... the result is that everything except $ address succeeds ... what am I doing wrong?

function event_map_img($echo = true){
    global $post;
    $address = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'date_address', true);
    if($echo): echo '<img src="'.'http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center='.$address.'&zoom=14&size=700x512&maptype=roadmap&markers=color:blue|label:X|'.$address.'&sensor=false" />';
    else:
        return '<img src="'.'http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center='.$address.'&zoom=14&size=700x512&maptype=roadmap&markers=color:blue|label:X|'.$address.'&sensor=false" />';
    endif;
}

Answer 1

Try the following:

function event_map_img($echo = true) {
    global $post;
    $address = urlencode(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'date_address', true));
    $src = htmlspecialchars('http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?center='.$address.'&zoom=14&size=700x512&maptype=roadmap&markers=color:blue|label:X|'.$address.'&sensor=false');
    if ($echo) {
        echo '<img src="'.$src.'" />';
    } else {
        return '<img src="'.$src.'" />';
    }
}

Answer 2

I think you are missing a separator &for $addressafter blue|label:X|, it should look like this:

'&address=' . $address