Re: Interest in data-type class for location / address?

Hi Greg, Greg Christensen wrote: > I have had similar problems defining "address" structures in the past, > specifically challenges like Philippe suggested with "international" > addresses (being in the US myself). > > I have also used the USPS web services as previously mentioned for address > verification and zip code related lookups. Not to divert, but the "street > address" is not the only piece of the structure that is diverse. You're > going to run into the same challenges with zip codes and postal codes, > states and provinces, whether or not to include country information or not, > etc, etc. Yes agreed, ZIP is US-specific so it should not be used as name for postal codes. Same for state, province, etc.. "region" is more appropriate globally. > As for "street address" clarity, I do think the structure presented by the > USPS in their web services is reasonable. They use AddressLine1 and > AddressLine2, and an optional "FirmName". Disregarding "FirmName" for now, > AddressLine1 (or with PEAR formatting: addressLine1) may be generic enough > to cover anything. Much like addressLine2 works well for "secondary units." > As we are still talking about "addresses" and "line" may generic enough to > simply mean information, and still represents the overall structure of an > address. Firm/company name is really recipient specific, same as person's name and department within a company. I think it's best left off from a location-related package. This could be handled by a Structures_Contact package though. I think AddressLine1 and AddressLine2 are confusing because in some countries the order of information could be reversed for "line 1" and "line 2". Even for the US it could be confusing, what is "line 1"? Is it the line with the street name or the one with a Apartment number for instance? If you look at a common mailing label in the US it could look like this: John Doe Apt 1 123 Main St Los Angeles, CA 98765 Lines here don't really make sense, because the US Postal Service, would call "123 Main St" as AddressLine1 and "Apt 1" as AddressLine2. The formatting reference guide of the USPS also states that the address above should actually be formatted: John Doe 123 MAIN ST APT 1 LOS ANGELES CA 98765 But for long addresses it should be: John Doe BLDG "A", FL 3, STE 345 123 VERY-LONG-WINDING-DEAD-END-NAME ST NW LOS ANGELES CA 98765 One more confusing example? John Doe 123 Main St PO BOX 876 LOS ANGELES CA 98765 In other countries the address should be written in reverse order with the most generic location on top: Los Angeles CA 98765 123 Main St Apt 1 John Doe So when you're dealing with international addresses line numbers don't make much sense and could lead to confusion, especially when you're trying to format the data to print labels... -Philippe