[Talk-GB] Postcode finder updates - postal addresses, house maps and error maps

[Matt Williams]

On 20 March 2011 21:08, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> The new error map is great, I'll add it to the set of 'lint' tools I keep an
> eye on.  There is one false positive however:
>
> 'Postcode W9 is badly formed' - many streets are tagged with just the first
> part of the postcode (the outbound code).  This is signed on the ground, and
> is useful to disambiguate street names, so it ought not to be an error.
> I think you are already allowing it on ways, but there are a few odd nodes
> that have it, usually road junctions.  I wouldn't tag it on the junction node
> myself, but if it's there then it is not wrong.

Yes, you're right that it's an overly harsh error message and it's by
far the most common 'error' in my database. I do however want to flag
these as, while they are certainly useful, they are not 'true
postcodes'.

What I plan to do is have different regexes to match and warn on:
- Correct format but is lower case
- Partial postcodes like the one you mention above
- Completely wrong postcodes like [1]

The first two will probably just be 'information class' errors but the
last will be at least a 'warning'.

-- 
Matt Williams
http://milliams.com

[1] http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/way/99040953