these days a partner mentioned CEDEX codes which are noit new to me but I'd like to take his request to drop some feedback about it here:
OK, his requirement is driven by a more generic story but the focus here is the CEDEX.My main challenge in this story is to get proper data. I need a complete list of french zipcodes together with the coordinates of the area (center coordinate plus surrounding polyline for visualization)
For Germany and The Netherlands this hasn't been an issue but in France it is: there's always some zip codes which are not in the data. And I haven't found a proper source so far. And it looks like there's something special in France in the context of bigger parties: they seem to have an individual postcode and a so-called CEDEX suffix. That looks critical to me because these codes do not describe a 2D area but a single point (0D).
- What is Cedex? Check this wikipedia article
- My French colleague Guillaume added this comment (Merci beaucoup! Et bonne noel et joyeuse fetes!
) :
CEDEX is a suffix of French Post company. In French we call it a "postal" address, which is fully different from a structured address.
Example : my [doesn'tmatter] head quarter is located to Roubaix, 59092 CEDEX, France. Physically, they are not located in ROUBAIX. CEDEX is a way for french "LAPOSTE" to sort flows of letters for companies as soon as it arrives on LAPOSTE platform.
So, to clean addresses, they must find the real physical address of delivery. No other way. If you only delete CEDEX from address, then your address format will be right, but physical address will be wrong. - Are we able to geocode CEDEX? - It could be if it is recorded as postal code. There is no special hint in the data if a postal code is a cedex or not.
- What are consequences when working with CEDEX? - Should be treated like a additional word. Of course it depends which API is used (multi field or single field) and if the rest of the input delivers enough information to find the address.
If you have any further question about CEDEX - just attach it here...Best regards,
Bernd
