location finder by typing your post code (UK)

[Richard]

Hi,

I wonder if you could advice me on the best solution.

I will receive from my client a raw data with locations of their
stores, which probably would look like this:
"B&Q, Industrial Park, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, CB23 2KK, 01480
7131313"

What I need to do is add to the website a location finder by typing a
postcode. Let's say I type "CB4 1JT" or "Cambridge" where I live and I
want to display number of nearest stores.

Ideally I would like to achieve similar result to this one:
http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/templa...ore_finder.jsp

What would be the best approach to implement solution like that? Do I
need to buy off-shelf solution? Which one, from your experience, is
the best. Obviously it must support PHP.

Thanks a million,
Richard

[Matthew]

There is also a dedicated UK postcode discussion mailing list, but I no

longer have the details and a quick web search did not find it. If you
can find it with a web search, it would be a valuable info. resource
from people who do this kind of thing professionally. Key words that
might source it are: postcode gis geography (and synonyms) mailing list,
etc.. People in the newsgroups above may know the subscribe details.

It's not a UK dedicated postcode mailing list at all, it's a dedicated GIS
mailing list, but members have postcode to location expertise: See here:

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/GIS-UK.html

HTH.

[Toby A Inkster]

Richard wrote:

What I need to do is add to the website a location finder by typing a
postcode.

Here's a link to my own work on postcodes. It supports basic postcode
parsing/validating for the UK, most of Western Europe, plus several other
countries, plus for the UK only: district-accuracy postcode positioning,
distance calculations and searching.

http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/postcodes/

Unsupported -- don't ask me for help using it.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
[OS: Linux 2.6.12-12mdksmp, up 1 day, 9:21.]

It'll be in the Last Place You Look
http://tobyinkster.co.uk/blog/2007/11/21/no2id/

[nice.guy.nige]

While the city slept, Toby A Inkster (us**********@tobyinkster.co.uk)
feverishly typed...

Richard wrote:

>What I need to do is add to the website a location finder by typing a
postcode.

Here's a link to my own work on postcodes. It supports basic postcode
parsing/validating for the UK, most of Western Europe, plus several
other countries, plus for the UK only: district-accuracy postcode
positioning, distance calculations and searching.

http://examples.tobyinkster.co.uk/postcodes/

Unsupported -- don't ask me for help using it.

Ohhhhh.... now where was this when I was trying to figure all this out a few
months ago?? ;-)

An excellent set of data and routines sir! :-)

Cheers,
Nige

--
Nigel Moss http://www.nigenet.org.uk
Mail address will bounce. ni***@DOG.nigenet.org.uk | Take the DOG. out!
"Your mother ate my dog!", "Not all of him!"