NAME
Lingua::EN::AddressParse - manipulate geographical addresses
SYNOPSIS
use Lingua::EN::AddressParse;
my %args =
(
country => 'Australia',
auto_clean => 1,
force_case => 1,
abbreviate_subcountry => 0,
abbreviated_subcountry_only => 1
);
my $address = new Lingua::EN::AddressParse(%args);
$error = $address->parse("14A MAIN RD. ST JOHNS WOOD NEW SOUTH WALES 2000");
%my_address = $address->components;
$suburb = $my_address{suburb};
$correct_casing = $address->case_all;REQUIRES
Perl, version 5.004 or higher, Lingua::EN::NameParse, Locale::SubCountry, Parse::RecDescent
DESCRIPTION
This module takes as input an address or post box in free format text such as,
12/3-5 AUBREY ST MOUNT VICTORIA WA 6133
"OLD REGRET" WENTWORTH FALLS NSW 2782 AUSTRALIA
2A OLD SOUTH LOW ST. KEW NEW SOUTH WALES 2123
GPO Box K318, HAYMARKET, NSW 2000and attempts to parse it. If successful, the address is broken down into components and useful functions can be performed such as :
converting upper or lower case values to name case (2 Low St. Kew NSW 2123 )
extracting the addresses individual components (2,Low St.,KEW,NSW,2123 )
determining the type of format the address is in ('suburban')If the address cannot be parsed you have the option of cleaning the address of bad characters, or extracting any portion that was parsed and the portion that failed.
This module can be used for analysing and improving the quality of lists of addresses.
DEFINITIONS
The following terms are used by AddressParse to define the components that can make up an address or post box.
Post Box - GP0 Box K123, LPO 2345, RMS 23 ...
Property Identifier
Sub property description - Level, Unit, Apartment, Lot ...
Property number - 12/66A, 24-34, 2A, 23B/12C, 12/42-44
Property name - "Old Regret"
Street name - O'Hare, New South Head, The Causeway
Street type - Road, Rd., St, Lane, Highway, Crescent, Circuit ...
Suburb - Dee Why, St. John's Wood ...
Sub country - NSW, New South Wales, ACT, NY, AZ ...
Post code - 2062, 34532, SG12A 9ET
Country - Australia, UK, US or CanadaRefer to the component grammar defined in the AddressGrammar module for a list of combinations.
The following address formats are currently supported :
'suburban' - property_identifier(?) street street_type suburb subcountry post_code country(?)
'post_box' - post_box suburb subcountry post_code country(?)
'rural' - property_name suburb subcountry post_code country(?)METHODS
new
The new method creates an instance of an address object and sets up the grammar used to parse addresses. This must be called before any of the following methods are invoked. Note that the object only needs to be created once, and can be reused with new input data.
Various setup options may be defined in a hash that is passed as an optional argument to the new method.
my %args =
(
country => 'Australia',
auto_clean => 1,
force_case => 1,
abbreviate_subcountry => 1,
abbreviated_subcountry_only => 1
);
my $address = new Lingua::EN::AddressParse(%args);country
The country argument must be specified. It determines the possible list of valid sub countries (states, counties etc, defined in the Locale::SubCountry module) and post code formats. Either the full name or abbreviation may be specified. The currently suppoted country names and codes are:
AU or Australia
CA or Canada
GB or United Kingdom
US or United StatesAll forms of upper/lower case are acceptable in the country's spelling. If a country name is supplied that the module doesn't recognise, it will die.
force_case (optional)
This option will force the case_all method to address case the entire input string, including any unmatched sections that failed parsing. This option is useful when you know you data has invalid addresses, but you cannot filter out or reject them.
auto_clean (optional)
When this option is set to a positive value, any call to the parse method that fails will attempt to 'clean' the address and then reparse it. See the clean method in Lingua::EN::Nameparse for details. This is useful for dirty data with embedded unprintable or non alphabetic characters.
abbreviate_subcountry (optional)
When this option is set to a positive value, the sub country is forced to it's abbreviated form, so "New South Wales" becomes "NSW". If the sub country is already abbreviated then it's value is not altered.
abbreviated_subcountry_only (optional)
When this option is set to a positive value, only the abbreviated form of sub country is allowed, such as "NSW" and not "New South Wales". This will make parsing quicker and ensure that addresses comply with postal standards that normally specify abbrviated sub countries only.
parse
$error = $address->parse("12/3-5 AUBREY ST VERMONT VIC 3133");The parse method takes a single parameter of a text string containing a address. It attempts to parse the address and break it down into the components described above. If the address was parsed successfully, a 0 is returned, otherwise a 1. This step is a prerequisite for the following functions.
case_all
$correct_casing = $address->case_all;The case_all method converts the first letter of each component to capitals and the remainder to lower case, with the following exceptions-
Proper names capitalisation such as MacNay and O'Brien are observedThe method returns the entire cased address as text.
case_components
%my_address = $address->components;
$cased_suburb = $my_address{suburb};The case_components method does the same thing as the case_all method, but returns the addresses cased components in a hash. The following keys are used for each component-
post_box
property_identifier
property_name
street
street_type
suburb
subcountry
post_code
countryIf a key has no matching data for a given address, it's values will be set to the empty string.
components
%address = $address->components;
$surburb = $address{suburb};The components method does the same thing as the case_components method, but each component is returned as it appears in the input string, with no case conversion.
properties
The properties method return several properties of the address as a hash.
type
The type of format a name is in, as one of the following strings:
suburban
rural
post_box
unknownnon_matching
Returns any unmatched section that was found.
LIMITATIONS
The huge number of character combinations that can form a valid address makes it is impossible to correctly identify them all.
Valid addresses must contain a suburb, subcountry (state) and post code, in that order. This format is widely accepted in Australia and the US. UK addresses will often include suburb, town, city and county, formats that are very difficult to parse.
Property names must be enclosed in quotes like "Old Regret"
Because of the large combination of possible addresses defined in the grammar, the program is not very fast.
REFERENCES
"The Wordsworth Dictionary of Abbreviations & Acronyms" (1997)
Australian Standard AS4212-1994 "Geographic Information Systems - Data Dictionary for transfer of street addressing information"
ISO 3166-2:1998, Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions. Also released as AS/NZS 2632.2:1999
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
Define grammar for other languages. Hopefully, all that would be needed is to specify a new module with its own grammar, and inherit all the existing methods. I don't have the knowledge of the naming conventions for non-english languages.
SEE ALSO
Lingua::EN::NameParse, Parse::RecDescent, Locale::SubCountry
TO DO
BUGS
Streets such as "The Esplanade" will return a street of "The Espalande" and a street type of null string.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1999-2002 Kim Ryan. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Perl Artistic License (see http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html).
AUTHOR
AddressParse was written by Kim Ryan <kimaryan@ozemail.com.au>. <http://www.data-distillers.com>