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Post office box numbers - parse

Purpose: to identify post office box numbers within street address fields and to move these numbers to a new field, with or without the correct, standardised local-language word for “post office box”.

This process works by identifying strings in the user-defined address field which indicate a post office box number. The number(s) following this string are written to a user-defined field (the process stops taking data from the field once anything other than a number or space is found). If required, the correct local-language form of the word “post office box” is also written to this field. Postal code and postal town information may also be copied to new fields as post office boxes in some countries may have a separate postal code and postal town to the street address. The remaining street address data is stripped of any remaining preceding punctuation (.,-;: or/). See example below. Once a string is found, the process stops checking - each address is assumed to have only one post office box number.

Example: Postbox 17, Ooststraat 21 in the Netherlands will be split into two fields: Postbus 17 and Ooststraat 21.

Postboxes which commence with a single letter (e.g. Locked Bag E142) or those which end in one or two letters (e.g. G.P.O. Box 128A or P.O. Box 1DT) are also recognized and parsed. Apparent postbox strings which are not followed by a number are not parsed.

Information required: You need to specify once for each GRC Tools^TMsession these parameters:

• the field to which to move the post office box number

• optionally, the field to take the postal code from and the field to which to copy it. Leave these fields empty if you do not want to copy the postal code.

• check the Overwrite ONLY if EMPTY box if you only want to copy the postal code if the field to move the postal code to does not already contain data

• optionally, the field to take the settlement name from and the field to which to copy it. Leave these fields empty if you do not want to copy the settlement name.

• check the second Overwrite ONLY if EMPTY box if you only want to copy the settlement name if the field to move the settlement name to does not already contain data

• Check the Retain word POSTBOX (in correct translation) box if you want to store the data preceded by the local-language form of the word “post office box”. If this remains unchecked, only the number is written to the post office box field, though both the post office box string and the number are removed from the address string. Thus, if this choice is checked, Postbox 17, Ooststraat 27 in the Netherlands would become Postbus 17 and Ooststraat 27; whereas unchecked it would become 17 and Ooststraat 27. Make sure that the post office box field is long enough to take the post office box string as well as the post office box number if you check this box.

For each field specified, you must specify whether the data in the field is in upper or mixed (upper and lower) case. The same case is retained in the field to which the post-box information is written.