yuri sw has a postal code correction api: http://www.yurisw.com/YAddress.aspx
so, if you’d like to correct/verify a united states mailing address, here’s a quick script:
<body>
<h1>Address Verify</h1>
<form action="index.php">
Street Address: <input type="text" name="address_line_1" value="<?php echo($_REQUEST['address_line_1']); ?>"><br />
City, State, Zip: <input type="text" name="address_line_2" value="<?php echo($_REQUEST['address_line_2']); ?>"><br />
<input type="submit" value="verify address" name="submit"/>
</form>
<?php
if (isset($_REQUEST['address_line_1']))
{
$URL='http://app.yurisw.com/YAddressWebService/YAddress.asmx/Process?';
$URL.='AddressLine1='.urlencode($_REQUEST['address_line_1']);
$URL.='&AddressLine2='.urlencode($_REQUEST['address_line_2']);
$URL.='&UserKey=';
$postResult=file_get_contents($URL);
$addressXML=new SimpleXMLElement($postResult);
echo("<h2>Verified Address: ".$addressXML->AddressLine1." ".$addressXML->AddressLine2."</h2>");
}
?>
</body>
this site http://federalgovernmentzipcodes.us/ has a database of US zipcodes to cities. there is a many cities to zip relationship.
what if you wanted a nifty form that took a zip and then populated a dropdown box with cities matching that zip?
first, let’s get the database file (csv) into a usable form. a database would be nice, but just for kicks, lets make a serialized array. it’s fast enough. this script will take that csv and create a one to many array serialized into a neat file:
$filename='free-zipcode-database.csv';
$handle = fopen($filename, 'r');
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE)
{
if (!isset($zipCodes[$data[1]]))
{
$zipCodes[$data[1]]=$data[3];
}
else
{
$zipCodes[$data[1]]=$zipCodes[$data[1]]."|".$data[3];
}
}
fclose($handle);
$serialZipCodes=serialize($zipCodes);
$handle = fopen('serialzips.txt', 'w');
fwrite($handle, $serialZipCodes);
fclose($handle);
now that we have our data inside serialzips.txt, let’s create a lookup script that will take a zip and return a JSON encoded array of cities
$filename='serialzips.txt';
$blob=file_get_contents($filename);
$zipCodes=unserialize($blob);
$zipArray=array_unique(explode('|',$zipCodes[$_REQUEST['zip']]));
echo(json_encode($zipArray));
and now for a bit of HTML to exercise the lookup script when the user types in a zip code into a text field:
<head>
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var lastzip='';
function cityLookup() {
$('#zip').keyup(function() {
var zip=document.getElementById("zip").value;
if (lastzip===zip) return;
if (zip.length<5) return;
lastzip=zip;
$('#spinner').show();
$.getJSON("lookup.php?zip="+escape(zip), function(data){
$('#mySelect').empty();
$.each(data, function(index, text) {
if (text!='')
$('#mySelect').append(
$('<option></option>').val(index).html(text)
);
$("#mySelect").val($("#mySelect option:first").val());
$('#spinner').hide();
});
});
});
}
$(document).ready(function(){
cityLookup();
$("#zip").keypress(function(){
cityLookup();
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p>
<b>Instructions</b>: type a zip code, and the city dropdown will populate with possible cities
</p>
<form>
<table cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5">
<tr>
<td>
<b>Zip Code: </b><input type="text" id="zip" value=""/>
</td>
<td><b>City: </b><select id="mySelect"></select>
</td>
<td><img style="display: none" id="spinner" src="spinner.gif" /></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
Enjoy!
