How to detect an address or a postal code in a variable

Question

My questions sound may different but I am really looking for solution.

I have a variable in PHP, let's say $check, containing a string. It can be either an address or a postal code. Is there any rule we can apply here to check whether variable has postcode or address?

Edit: This website is for UK

Thanks

i am building website for Uk.so post code will be all Uk postcode.@andrewsi — Shail, Sep 25 '12 at 15:37
@shail - in that case, all you need to do is write a function to check if the string looks like a UK postcode. If it is, the string is a postcode. If it's not, then it's an address. A regular expression would work perfectly. — andrewsi, Sep 25 '12 at 15:38
@MarcB - almost. There can be one or two letters at the start; and the final part is a number followed by two letters. — andrewsi, Sep 25 '12 at 15:42
/[a-z]{1,2}\d{1,2}[a-z]?\s?\d[a-z]{2}/i should do the trick. — andrewsi, Sep 25 '12 at 15:50

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 25 '12 at 15:51

7

Quite detailed link: here

function IsPostcode($postcode)
    {
    $postcode = strtoupper(str_replace(' ','',$postcode));
    if(preg_match("/^[A-Z]{1,2}[0-9]{2,3}[A-Z]{2}$/",$postcode) || preg_match("/^[A-Z]{1,2}[0-9]{1}[A-Z]{1}[0-9]{1}[A-Z]{2}$/",$postcode) || preg_match("/^GIR0[A-Z]{2}$/",$postcode))
    return true;
    else
    return false;
    }

Use:

$e = "AB235RB";
if (IsPostcode($e))
print "Valid Post Code";
else
print "Invalid Post Code";

I have written a UK postcode validator based off this, so I know it works :)

answered Sep 25 '12 at 15:51

Chris

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You will also want to deal with spaces as most people format their postcode as "bh20 6dq" for instance – Chris Sep 25 '12 at 15:53
(Incorrect comment deleted, and +1 added for spotting those annoying London postcodes) – andrewsi Sep 25 '12 at 15:59

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

0

New Answer

As Marc B pointed out, my initial answer will not work due to the alphanumeric quality of UK zipcodes. In that case, I suggest preg_match to regex match the zipcode, or you could do a strlen on $check and look for the length of a zip code if you can be sure no addresses will ever be that length.

I'd recommend reading this question for a good discussion on the regex required.

Old Answer

If it is a simple zip code (i.e. not like 12345-1234), you could check with is_numeric. That is a bit of a hack, but it may suit your purposes. Even if it is a complex zip, you could always use str_replace to remove the - and check is_numeric. This is of course assuming the address has some character/string contents and is not fully numeric.

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Sep 25 '12 at 15:39

Eric H

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uk post codes are letter-number-letter number-letter-number, as are canadian ones. – Marc B Sep 25 '12 at 15:40
uk postcodes are alphanumeric. lol if it was numeric, i have done that earlier :) – Shail Sep 25 '12 at 15:42
@MarcB - Alas, UK postcodes are nowhere near as organized as Canadian ones. – andrewsi Sep 25 '12 at 15:43

How to detect an address or a postal code in a variable

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