We do zip lookups in the Web applications I work on in my day job. The
user enters the Zip Code, and the application looks it up. When there
are multiple cities for a single ZIP Code, we generate a drop-down
listbox and have the user select which city/town to use. This seems to
work out pretty well.
We refresh our US ZIP Code database using files we get from
http://www.zipcodedownload.com/
We have an annual subscription with them for the basic US ZIP Code data
that includes quarterly updates. I think it costs us something like
$39.95 annually, which is a good price to pay for the peace-of-mind and
convenience of keeping our ZIP Code database current with little effort
on our part. We just run a little program that wipes our existing ZIP
Code table and repopulates it from the file from ZIP Code Download.
Bob Conway
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The problem with zip codes is that they don't have a 1:1 mapping. Larger
cities have multiple zip codes, sometimes two or more small cities may
share
the same zip code, and there's even a loose correlation where the USPS
sees
a zip code and while it technically doesn't belong to a particular city,
it's valid enough for delivery.
-Adam
dingostick.com
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