Re: Question on Addresses and Not Null constraints

["Chris Travers" <..hidden..>]

On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 6:13 PM, Jeff Kowalczyk <..hidden..> wrote:
> On Wed, 21 May 2008 11:44:05 -0700, Chris Travers wrote:
>> One thing that is remarkably hard to model relationally is address data.
>> In particular different places have different semantics.  Some countries
>> have mail codes while some do not.  Some places it makes sense to track
>> states and provinces while in some countries this doesn't make sense.  And
>> this is not even trying to track things like street addresses in cities
>> like Managua....
>>
>> So, I am wondering if we should track some additional data in the
>> application.  For example, we could track which countries should require
>> states data, or we could simply keep with a minimal of not-null
>> constraints.
>>
>> What do people think?
>
> What are the fields used by international express shipment companies? I
> would guess that set required for delivery has been standardized by these
> and EDI specs, etc.

Hmmm....

If I ship something to Seattle, I have to specify:

street address
city
state
zip (mail_code)

If I ship something to Jakarta, Indonesia I have to specify:

District, block, and building  (could be non-atomically stored as
street address)
City
Province
Mail code
Country

If I ship something to Quito, Ecuador, I have to specify:

Street address
Cross street
City
Country

If I ship something to Managua, I have to specify:

Street directions (archaic format, long)
city
country

So minimally, one has:
street address or equivalent
City
Country.

I suppose we could just drop the NOT NULL constraint from state....

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

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