Thread: Sorting street addresses

Thanks to some help here on the list, I've been able to get addresses
sorting pretty well, but now I have a issue with same addresses on
different streets not grouping the streets. This is what I'm using a
substring search in the ORDER BY statement now like in this view:

SELECT tblhudsimilargroups.rems_id, tblhudsimilargroups.group_id,
    tblhudsimilargroups.similar_group_id, tblhudbuildings.address,
    tblhudbuildings.hud_building_id,
    is_bldg_lbp(tblhudbuildings.hud_building_id) AS is_lbp,
    is_bldg_lbp_hazard(tblhudbuildings.hud_building_id) AS is_lbp_hazard
FROM (tblhudsimilargroups LEFT JOIN tblhudbuildings ON
    ((tblhudsimilargroups.similar_group_id =
tblhudbuildings.similar_group_id)))
ORDER BY tblhudsimilargroups.rems_id, tblhudsimilargroups.group_id,
    ("substring"((tblhudbuildings.address)::text,
'[^0-9]+'::text))::character
    varying, ("substring"((tblhudbuildings.address)::text,
'^[0-9]+'::text))::integer;

And getting this result:

ohc=> SELECT public.viewbldginfo.group_id, public.viewbldginfo.address
FROM public.viewbldginfo WHERE (public.viewbldginfo.rems_id
='800004136');
 group_id |         address
----------+--------------------------
 A        | 3606 ROYALTY COURT
 A        | 3601/3603 ROYALTY COURT
 A        | 3602/3604 ROYALTY COURT
 A        | 3605/3607 ROYALTY COURT
 A        | 3701/3703 MCKINLEY COURT
 A        | 3702/3704 MCKINLEY COURT
 A        | 3705/3707 MCKINLEY COURT
 A        | 3709/3711 MCKINLEY COURT
 A        | 7801/7803 SOCIAL CIRCLE
 A        | 7801/7803 ANDALUSIA
 A        | 7801/7803 HAVERSHAM
 A        | 7802/7804 ANDALUSIA
 A        | 7802/7804 HAVERSHAM
 A        | 7805/7807 SOCIAL CIRCLE
 A        | 7806/7808 HAVERSHAM
 A        | 7811/7813 SOCIAL CIRCLE
 A        | 7815/7817 SOCIAL CIRCLE
 A        | 7825/7827 SOCIAL CIRCLE
 A        | 7833/7835 SOCIAL CIRCLE

I would like all those on the same street grouped together. Is there any
tricks to getting the street names sorted first, possibly where numbers
and strings separate?

--
Robert

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 03:36:00PM -0400, Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:

> I would like all those on the same street grouped together. Is there any
> tricks to getting the street names sorted first, possibly where numbers
> and strings separate?

You could do something like

CREATE FUNCTION streetname(text) RETURNS text AS '
    SELECT substring($1 FROM ''[a-zA-Z ]+$'')
' LANGUAGE 'SQL';

and then add an ORDER BY streetname(address) to your select.

Richard

Richard Poole wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 03:36:00PM -0400, Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
>
>
>>I would like all those on the same street grouped together. Is there any
>>tricks to getting the street names sorted first, possibly where numbers
>>and strings separate?
>
>
> You could do something like
>
> CREATE FUNCTION streetname(text) RETURNS text AS '
>     SELECT substring($1 FROM ''[a-zA-Z ]+$'')
> ' LANGUAGE 'SQL';
>
> and then add an ORDER BY streetname(address) to your select.

You could also add a function index that would help speed things along.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake



>
> Richard
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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How will that work when people reside at
  123A Some St.

Address that need to be sorted and/or grouped in any way should be
stored as multiple fields.

door number
door number suffix          Most often a letter
street name prefix          Section
street name
street name suffix          Direcetion
street type                 St, Cr, Rd etc
subdivision type            Unit, Apt, Office etc
subdivision                 Alphanumeric
City
State
Postal Code




Reformating street address for address correction and for the purpose of
distribution and/or statistics is a pain.

Try these:

105-1234 N 13th St E NY
1234 N 13th E St apt 105
1234 North 13th St East apt 105 New-York
#105 1234 N Thirteenth St E NY

You get my drift... and I did not try appartment letter.

JLL







Richard Poole wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 03:36:00PM -0400, Robert Fitzpatrick wrote:
>
>
>>I would like all those on the same street grouped together. Is there any
>>tricks to getting the street names sorted first, possibly where numbers
>>and strings separate?
>
>
> You could do something like
>
> CREATE FUNCTION streetname(text) RETURNS text AS '
>     SELECT substring($1 FROM ''[a-zA-Z ]+$'')
> ' LANGUAGE 'SQL';
>
> and then add an ORDER BY streetname(address) to your select.
>
> Richard
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
>     (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo@postgresql.org)
>

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> I would like all those on the same street grouped together. Is there any
> tricks to getting the street names sorted first, possibly where numbers
> and strings separate?

As some have demonstrated, this can be a difficult problem. Your best bet
is not to reinvent the wheel, but find someone who has already solved the
problem. For example:

http://search.cpan.org/dist/Lingua-EN-AddressParse/AddressParse.pm

You could easily use the above in a Pl/perl function, or just in Perl
if your application happens to be written in that. Worse case, check out the
source code of the module and see how they have done it and create your
own version.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200410290722

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