Thanks everyone, here's the final work of art?

Well, this isn't a question. Just the results of all the help I've gotten over the past week. Thanks to everyone who helped, particularly CodeDuck! You can see it in testing form at: It breaks down an address so that the database I'm forced to work with will be able to find it... http://www.lcounty.com/boe/database/newtestform.php ****** You'll need an address from this file: http://www.lcounty.com/boe/database/odbtest.php Thanks again, the code (- the SQL) is below: /* Address Parser 1.0 Started 08-21-2000 John P. Asendorf (jasendorf@lcounty.com) Web Applications Developer Licking County, Ohio - Information Systems --------- NOTES: $address comes from a form */ //convert the address to all upper case, might as well, database is that way $address = strtoupper($address); //establish a variable for the final street name to be used in the SQL statement $street = ""; //separate all of the pieces from $address $piece = explode ( " " , $address ); //count the number of pieces $num_pieces = sizeof ( $piece ); //PIECE 0 should be a number, so pass it to it's own variable that we can check //what if it's not a number? kick it back. if (eregi ( "(^[0-9]{1,})" , $piece[0] )) { $street_number = $piece[0]; //assign the variable something I can understand } else { die ("You must supply a street number. Please press your browser's BACK button."); } //PIECE 1 could be a directional, street name, mt, or ordinal street (1st, 30th) //no PIECE 1? kick it back if ($piece[1] == "") { die ("You must enter a street name. Please press your browser's BACK button and enter a street name."); } //let's make a function to handle each of the words, no reason to make this too hard function test_for_special ($num) { //some global values so that this works OK global $street; global $address_counter; //check to see if it's an ordinal street name with regex first //too intense to do a switch for every ordinal if ( eregi("([0-9]{1,2}[a-zA-Z]{1,2})",$num) ) { switch ($num) { case "1ST": $street .= "FIRST"; break; case "2ND": $street .= "SECOND"; break; case "3RD": $street .= "THIRD"; break; case "4TH": $street .= "FOURTH"; break; case "5TH": $street .= "FIFTH"; break; case "6TH": $street .= "SIXTH"; break; case "7TH": $street .= "SEVENTH"; break; case "8TH": $street .= "EIGHTH"; break; case "9TH": $street .= "NINTH"; break; case "10TH": $street .= "TENTH"; break; case "11TH": $street .= "ELEVENTH"; break; case "12TH": $street .= "TWELVETH"; break; case "13TH": $street .= "THIRTEENTH"; break; case "14TH": $street .= "FOURTEENTH"; break; case "15TH": $street .= "FIFTEENTH"; break; case "16TH": $street .= "SIXTEENTH"; break; case "17TH": $street .= "SEVENTEENTH"; break; case "18TH": $street .= "EIGHTEENTH"; break; case "19TH": $street .= "NINETEENTH"; break; case "20TH": $street .= "TWENTIETH"; break; case "21ST": $street .= "TWENTY FIRST"; break; case "22ND": $street .= "TWENTY SECOND"; break; case "23RD": $street .= "TWENTY THIRD"; break; case "24TH": $street .= "TWENTY FOURTH"; break; case "25TH": $street .= "TWENTY FIFTH"; break; case "26TH": $street .= "TWENTY SIXTH"; break; case "27TH": $street .= "TWENTY SEVENTH"; break; case "28TH": $street .= "TWENTY EIGTH"; break; case "29TH": $street .= "TWENTY NINTH"; break; case "30TH": $street .= "THIRTIETH"; break; case "31ST": $street .= "THIRTY FIRST"; break; case "32ND": $street .= "THIRTY SECOND"; break; case "33RD": $street .= "THIRTY THIRD"; break; case "34TH": $street .= "THIRTY FOURTH"; break; case "35TH": $street .= "THIRTY FIFTH"; break; case "36TH": $street .= "THIRTY SIXTH"; break; case "37TH": $street .= "THIRTY SEVENTH"; break; case "38TH": $street .= "THIRTY EIGHTH"; break; case "39TH": $street .= "THIRTY NINTH"; break; case "40TH": $street .= "FORTIETH"; break; } } //not an ordinal? check to see if it's a special word //use wildcards in case word is spelled out else { switch ($num) { case "NORTH": $street .= "N%"; break; case "SOUTH": $street .= "S%"; break; case "EAST": $street .= "E%"; break; case "WEST": $street .= "W%"; break; case "SOUTHWEST": $street .= "SW%"; break; case "SOUTHEAST": $street .= "SE%"; break; case "NORTHWEST": $street .= "NW%"; break; case "NORTHEAST": $street .= "NE%"; break; case "MOUNT": $street .= "MT%"; break; case "STREET": $street .= "ST%"; break; case "ROAD": $street .= "RD"; //too bad if road is spelled out break; case "AVENUE": $street .= "AVE%"; break; case "COURT": $street .= "CT"; break; case "DRIVE": $street .= "DR%"; break; case "PLACE": $street .= "PL%"; break; case "CIRCLE": $street .= "CIR%"; break; case "BOULEVARD": $street .= "BLVD"; break; case "APARTMENT": $street .= "APT"; break; case "LANE": $street .= "LN"; break; case "PARKWAY": $street .= "PKWY"; break; case "TRAIL": $street .= "TRL"; break; default: $street .= $num; break; } } if ($address_counter != 1 ) { $street .= " "; } } //create a loop to spit out the name (almost done) //skip the number $address_counter = $num_pieces; $skip_me = $num_pieces; while ( list($key, $val) = each($piece) ) { if ( $address_counter == $skip_me ) { } else { test_for_special ($val); } $address_counter--; if ( $address_counter==0 ) break; } //END OF ADDRESS PARSER --------------------- John Asendorf - jasendorf@lcounty.com Web Applications Developer - http://www.lcounty.com Licking County, Ohio, USA 740-349-3631 >