Time to celebrate. ๐ฅณ We hit a nice milestone last week when @theHyphyDude submitted a pull request on our address-formatting project. The PR added a link to a #golang project that uses our templates.
So what is address-formatting?
github.com/OpenCageData/aโฆ
๐๐งต๐
So what is address-formatting?
github.com/OpenCageData/aโฆ
๐๐งต๐
2/ Here's the problem: addresses all over the world are different. Different countries do things differently, and sometimes there are even differences within countries. 
3/ Meanwhile the global OpenStreetMap community is continually collecting all kinds of data about the world, which is great. ๐ช๐บ๏ธ This can go to intense detail: every tree, park bench, foot path, etc. That's great, but ...
4/ When someone sends our API a geocoding request, we look in the database and see all kinds of stuff. We need to sift through it, and turn it into a well formatted address that matches the local way of presenting addresses that makes sense for that location.
5/ Sounds simple, but many services get it wrong. We call this the "Berlin, Berlin" bug. In the US ๐บ๐ธ it is normal to show <city>, <state>. In Germany ๐ฉ๐ช, Berlin is both a city and a state, but no one ever refers to "Berlin, Berlin". Only American services do that.
6/ Subtle i18n details like this add up to make a service feel natural and easy to use (or not).
When it's not right it's like the tiny stone in your shoe ๐ชจ๐ that keeps annoying you.
address-formatting is our open source project to know how to make addresses look right
When it's not right it's like the tiny stone in your shoe ๐ชจ๐ that keeps annoying you.
address-formatting is our open source project to know how to make addresses look right
7/ the address-formatting project is a collection of templates that let us know how to display an address for each country/territory (248 in total) in the world ๐
github.com/OpenCageData/aโฆ
github.com/OpenCageData/aโฆ
8/ The address-formatting templates themselves can be used in any programming language, with last week's PR adding #golang there are now 10 different parsers. ๐ฅณ Yeah, open source!
9/ most importantly we have hundreds of tests. We're always adding more, and welcome your suggestions. There is no shortage of global addressing edge cases.
You can see address-formatting in action in the "formatted" string in our geocoding API results
You can see address-formatting in action in the "formatted" string in our geocoding API results
Hope you enjoyed this week's peek behind the curtain ๐ช at life at a geocoding service.
We have many more geothreads about border disputes, exclaves, reverse geocoding, etc listed on our blog: blog.opencagedata.com/post/geothreadโฆ
Have questions? Get in touch.
We have many more geothreads about border disputes, exclaves, reverse geocoding, etc listed on our blog: blog.opencagedata.com/post/geothreadโฆ
Have questions? Get in touch.
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