User input parsing - city / state / zip / country

Question

I am looking for advice on analyzing user input in several City / State / Zip Code / Country combinations.

A common example would be what Google maps do.

Some input examples:

• "City, State, Country"
• "City, country"
• "City, Zip Code, Country"
• City, State, Zip Code
• "Postcode"

What will be the effective and correct way to analyze this input from the user?

If you know of any implementation examples, please share :)

Answer 1

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Answer 2

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Answer 3

PHP

• http://www.eotz.com/2008/07/parsing-location-string-php/

Yahoo, , -, ()

• http://developer.yahoo.com/geo/placemaker/

Openstreetmap, ,

• http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Answer 4

, (City Zip State Country), , , , , . , .

Assuming we're talking about US addresses -

• Zip is most obvious, so check that first.
• The state has 50x2 options (California or California), check the following.
• There are ~ 190x2 options in the country, depending on how you want to be (USA, USA, USA).
• All that remains is probably your City.

In terms of efficiency, it might make sense to check out a few standard formats first, as Dan suggests.