Re: RFC Postal Routing Package

Matt K wrote:

Sorry to be stupid, but is this the same as Post Code (zip to you yanks) lookup software (ie, type in a post-code, get the street, city, etc and visa-versa)?

Yeah. It looks somehow like this: 60528.055.005.19-4 It's the postal code A for this zip unique street code The house number The produkt number A mod10 checksum This forms a pretty barcode.

I've got a sample PostCode DB ('PAF data') from Royal Mail in the UK. What a hideous data model! I was supposed to be doing something with it earlier this year till the client got cash shy.

But you could try to do a driver for Royal Mail if I provide the infrastructure?

Ah, no, that's quite a bit more complex than what I had in mind. Sounds good - if challenging.

It's not too difficult. Th Deutsche Post provides a nice flowchart how to get to the data with all exceptions that may occur. This chart mixed with some tricks to accept typos or different writings makes a pretty fault save system. 100% will never bes possible.

Don't forget the 'customer service' type applications though, where entering the postcode saves customers entering their entire address, bar the house number: very good for online stores/distance finders/etc.

Yeah - it's for an online store. But I will only use it for the backend (ths shipping part) for now till I am sure that I don't scrae away customers by not accepting inputs.

Perhaps the address <--> post code part of it could be separate from the gory handwriting heuristics? It'd basically be a common DB format and a bunch of data mangling scripts to arrive there from whatever each postal service sends.

O.K. I don't understand this paragraph :-)

Royal Mail certainly don't give the data away free - it's quite a few thou' for a yearly subscription to the entire UK database, and only slightly less for a 3rd party webservicey interface :( http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/jump2?mediaId=400085&catId=400084

Oh. But well, at least companies who need postal routing usually have to buy/get this data. Normally bundled with software. DeutschPost seems to bill the software the provide but not the data they use. greetings -- Daniel Khan