[thelist] zip code ?

[Ben Henick]

On Wed, 10 Apr 2002, Russell Griechen wrote:

> I'm in over my head here...
> Here is a record from a mysqldump:
> INSERT INTO city VALUES ( '11520', 'Toccopola', '34.25639', '-89.23556',
> '31');
>
> The 11520 is an auto-increment but is lacking a zipcode and it has a
> stateid (31)
>
> So How do I get a zip code into this database without hand entry?

...As Anthony said; presumably the lat/long coords provided will represent
the geographical center of each ZIP code, perhaps with other spatial data.

> and what are the implications of the  9 letter zips ...England and
> France comes into play in this database?...and search for adjacent
> breeders, hunters is why I need the lats/longs

...Then you will also need to obtain an algorithm for the "Within {x}
Miles" search, based on those same lat/long points; I have a friend who
wrote just that application about 18 months ago (dunno if it was C or
PHP, but pretty sure it was one of those) and can (hopefully) pass the
code along if you need it.

As for foreign postal codes - my understanding is that many countries
handle (in many circumstances) consider postal codes to be more or less
"optional" - there are often geographical correlations that aren't
apparent to foreigners or nationals who've never pondered the subject.
For example, the first letter of a Canadian postal code correlates
directly to a given province (or the NWT).

The same is true in the U.S. as in Canada; the first two digits of a ZIP
code will inform the destination state of post, while the third will tell
you which Main PO takes that mail before it is sent to the local PO and
from there to the recipient... there are exceptions to this, but that's
the general idea...


--
Ben Henick
Web Author At-Large              Managing Editor
http://www.io.com/persist1/      http://www.digital-web.com/
persist1 at io.com                  bmh at digital-web.com
--
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering, Pinky?"
"I think so, Brain, but... (snort) no, no, it's too stupid."
"We will disguise ourselves as a cow."
"Oh!" (giggles) "That was it exactly!"