5 ms·

Does the USPS have guidelines or a list for valid city names? Does Target ship to the US only? If the answer to either of those is "no" then their City valida

by mason55 15y ago

Does the USPS have guidelines or a list for valid city names? Does Target ship to the US only? If the answer to either of those is "no" then their City validation code is almost assuredly broken.

wccrawford 15y ago
Agreed. A former employer tried to implement something of the sort, just to keep the city names nice... They ended up giving up on it because the data just wasn't good enough. They even tried just for the US, and not international, and it still wasn't good enough. It just changes too much and any inconvenience to the customer was not acceptable.
- tmcneal 15y ago
  There's third-party vendors that provide an API to verify address information. QAS is one of that's used by some large retail sites: http://www.qas.com/ http://www.qas.com/
  - ars 15y ago
    You don't need a third party: https://www.usps.com/webtools/htm/Address-Information-v3-1a.htm https://www.usps.com/webtools/htm/Address-Information-v3-1a....
    - nicw 15y ago
      Woah, thanks. I didn't know the USPS provided this API
- ianferrel 15y ago
  It seems like the right way to do this is to have a positive list, but to accept anything. If you put in a city on the list, then you get the green SUCCESS (and probably some autocomplete suggestions to take you there), if you put in one that's not on the list, you get an no cue at all (or an equivocal one) Then as you make successful orders to previously unknown cities, you can add them to the known list (possibly as aliases of the "real" city name, which you can then display as a choice to future users on entry.
  - aquark 15y ago
    The list of valid cities in the US is likely huge -- having an auto complete list that matched anything would likely make it harder as the users has to scroll past a lot of close but not the right ones. Populating the auto-complete list with the 100 biggest cities and accepting any input would probably give a better compromise. Or why not just ask for zip code first and auto-populate the rest?
    - wccrawford 15y ago
      http://www.greatdata.com/zip-code-questions.htm http://www.greatdata.com/zip-code-questions.htm Q: How often do the ZIP / postal codes really change? A: U.S. ZIP Codes change sporadically. Most of the time there's just a few changes, but every now and then (especially around July 1st) there will be major changes. ---- ... In other words, they change all the bloody time.
thematt 15y ago
Somewhat off-topic, but interestingly enough the city name is not required for delivery by USPS. As long as the street address and zipcode are correct the automated sorters will find the correct route. There is actually a pretty interesting response by a mail carrier as to what the minimal address requirements are for delivery by USPS: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110527152625AABkMEQ http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110527152625AA...
- ars 15y ago
  My dad once sent a piece of mail with just two numbers on it: The PO box and the zipcode. But just the numbers, no words or anything. And it got there, but the post office clerk complained about it to the recipient :) (It was a small town.) You could probably do that with a regular street address as well if you used zip+4. I.e. just the house number and the zip+4.
ellyagg 15y ago
Target.com doesn't ship outside the US: http://www.target.com/HelpContent?help=/sites/html/TargetOnline/help/orders_and_shipping/shipping_charges_and_timing_estimates/shipping_charges_and_timing_estimates.html http://www.target.com/HelpContent?help=/sites/html/TargetOnl... The USPS has an authoritative package of zip info including cities: https://www.usps.com/business/address-information-systems.htm https://www.usps.com/business/address-information-systems.ht...
Roboprog 15y ago
USPS most definitely has a city list. Look up "CASS" (zipCode Accuracy Support System). It takes the address, validates it, and produces or corrects the ZIP.

by mason55 15y ago

Does the USPS have guidelines or a list for valid city names? Does Target ship to the US only? If the answer to either of those is "no" then their City validation code is almost assuredly broken.

wccrawford 15y ago

Agreed. A former employer tried to implement something of the sort, just to keep the city names nice... They ended up giving up on it because the data just wasn't good enough. They even tried just for the US, and not international, and it still wasn't good enough. It just changes too much and any inconvenience to the customer was not acceptable.

tmcneal 15y ago
There's third-party vendors that provide an API to verify address information. QAS is one of that's used by some large retail sites: http://www.qas.com/ http://www.qas.com/
- ars 15y ago
  You don't need a third party: https://www.usps.com/webtools/htm/Address-Information-v3-1a.htm https://www.usps.com/webtools/htm/Address-Information-v3-1a....
  - nicw 15y ago
    Woah, thanks. I didn't know the USPS provided this API
ianferrel 15y ago
It seems like the right way to do this is to have a positive list, but to accept anything. If you put in a city on the list, then you get the green SUCCESS (and probably some autocomplete suggestions to take you there), if you put in one that's not on the list, you get an no cue at all (or an equivocal one) Then as you make successful orders to previously unknown cities, you can add them to the known list (possibly as aliases of the "real" city name, which you can then display as a choice to future users on entry.
- aquark 15y ago
  The list of valid cities in the US is likely huge -- having an auto complete list that matched anything would likely make it harder as the users has to scroll past a lot of close but not the right ones. Populating the auto-complete list with the 100 biggest cities and accepting any input would probably give a better compromise. Or why not just ask for zip code first and auto-populate the rest?
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    http://www.greatdata.com/zip-code-questions.htm http://www.greatdata.com/zip-code-questions.htm Q: How often do the ZIP / postal codes really change? A: U.S. ZIP Codes change sporadically. Most of the time there's just a few changes, but every now and then (especially around July 1st) there will be major changes. ---- ... In other words, they change all the bloody time.

thematt 15y ago

Somewhat off-topic, but interestingly enough the city name is not required for delivery by USPS. As long as the street address and zipcode are correct the automated sorters will find the correct route. There is actually a pretty interesting response by a mail carrier as to what the minimal address requirements are for delivery by USPS: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110527152625AABkMEQ http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110527152625AA...

ars 15y ago
My dad once sent a piece of mail with just two numbers on it: The PO box and the zipcode. But just the numbers, no words or anything. And it got there, but the post office clerk complained about it to the recipient :) (It was a small town.) You could probably do that with a regular street address as well if you used zip+4. I.e. just the house number and the zip+4.

ellyagg 15y ago

Target.com doesn't ship outside the US: http://www.target.com/HelpContent?help=/sites/html/TargetOnline/help/orders_and_shipping/shipping_charges_and_timing_estimates/shipping_charges_and_timing_estimates.html http://www.target.com/HelpContent?help=/sites/html/TargetOnl... The USPS has an authoritative package of zip info including cities: https://www.usps.com/business/address-information-systems.htm https://www.usps.com/business/address-information-systems.ht...

Roboprog 15y ago

USPS most definitely has a city list. Look up "CASS" (zipCode Accuracy Support System). It takes the address, validates it, and produces or corrects the ZIP.