URL pattern for place_id information

General talk
1

Newbie problem:

I can use the Nominatim interface to search for all instances of e.g. Kitchener Road and get them back as XML:

http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/search?q=kitchener%20road&format=xml&limit=100&countrycodes=gb&addressdetails=1

Lovely stuff. However, having found that the Kitchener Road which interests me has place_id 38552263, I then want a URL pattern which will deliver me the details for just this place, in XML. I would do:

http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/details.php?place_id=38552263&format=xml

but the documentation specifically says that the display.php pattern doesn’t support an XML API, and so it proves.

I can’t find a way of using the core API to deliver the same detailed information about a place. I can get some information about the corresponding way id:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/api/0.6/way/26682340/full

but this doesn’t give me the information I need.

Any help gratefully received …

Richard

2

This is the reply I got directly from OSM Nominatim support. Quoted here in case it helps anyone with the same question:

"There are two kinds of IDs in Nominatim. The internal place ID
and the OSM ID which is what is returned in osm_type/osm_id. The
first isn’t really stable, it will be gone, if we happen to reload
the database. The second is a bit better and you can “bring back”
an object with the reverse request, e.g. for High Wycombe above:

http://nominatim.openstreetmap.org/reverse?osm_type=N&osm_id=21118787&format=xml&addressdetails=1

However, be aware that OSM IDs may change as well. For example,
a restaurant may be a simple node first and then changed into
a building in which case it changes its OSM type (from node to way)
and consequently also its number. In the end it all depends how and
what you exactly want to link back to."

Thanks,

Richard