state abbreviations

[Alan Lee]

Is there a function that does just the opposite of cstate? I want to take a full state name, Kentucky, and get KY. Have searched and searched, I can't seem to find one.

Thanks,
Alan

[whanigsberg]

RE: state abbreviations

Alan,

I don't see one but it would be easy to throw together a solution since there are only 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces--to match the cstate() function.

Either create a lookup table that accepts a state-province and yields an abbreviation or create a function and use the select-case function. YOu can use the cstates() function to test for valid imput.

Bill

[davej]

RE: state abbreviations

Alan,

I kinda' hate to state (no pun intended) the obvious, but why don't you build a simple lookup table to do this?

Dave

[Alan Lee]

RE: state abbreviations

I have imported a file that has the city, state, and zip in one string. I need to create 3 seperate fields for this information, which I have already done. Unfortunately, the state field is not uniform. Some have abbreviations and some have the full state name. I want to convert them all to abbreviations.

[whanigsberg]

RE: state abbreviations

Alan,

Post your data and perhaps someone can help you with the variabilities.

Meanwhile, on the original question, since cstates() generates a list of states we don't need a table with that information as we can look up the position of the state in the list and then find the abbreviation from cstates("a").

The following shows how. It would be easy to base a custom function on this.

Bill

?wordat("New York",cstates(),crlf())
= 33.000000
pos=2*(wordat("New York",cstates(),crlf()))-1
?substr(cstates("a"),pos,2)
= 65
stateab=substr(cstates("a"),pos,2)
?stateab
= "NY"

statename="Ontario"
pos=2*(wordat(statename,cstates(),crlf()))-1
stateab=substr(cstates("a"),pos,2)
?stateab
= "ON"

[whanigsberg]

RE: state abbreviations

FUNCTION stateabb AS C (statename AS C )
statelist=stritran(cstates(),crlf(1),space(1))
select
case .not.*wordi(statelist,statename) 'not a valid state name so return an error
stateabb = "err"
case else
pos=2*(wordat(statename,cstates(),crlf()))-1
stateabb=substr(cstates("a"),pos,2)
end select
END FUNCTION

[Alan Lee]

RE: state abbreviations

William,

Thanks for the input. I have already come up with a function that in a way is a lot simpler , but a lot longer than yours. I used 51 case selects. It works, not as fancy as yours. I do like yours and am going to study it. To be honest, I have not reached that level of programing yet. Someday I hope to be though. Thanks again for you efforts, it is greatly appreciated.

Alan

[BRochford]

RE: state abbreviations

Alan don't forget there are many more than 51 State Abbreviations. Be sure to check the Official USPS List so you include:
AS, FM, GU, MP, PR, VI, AE, AA & AP

(hope I didn't forget any others).

-Baqrry

[whanigsberg]

RE: state abbreviations

Just type

?cstates()

in the interactive window to see the full list.

Bill

[RJGowan]

RE: state abbreviations

Hi Bill:
Tried cstates() and FYI, it shows (see below) several errors in list of Canadian Provinces and Territories:

Missing are: Manitoba MB
Nunavut NU

Manitoba has been a province since 1870 - no idea why it would be missing.

Nunavut (NU) territory split from Northwest Territories(NT) on 1999-04-01. Canada Post continued to use NT as the designator for both Nunavut and Northwest Territories until 2000-12-12. The reason for the delay was typical of Canadian beaurocracy - Canada Post was worried that the "naughty connotation" of the french translation would offend francophones. 'nu' means naked or nude in french. Canada Post was considering NN, but many mailers, including government employees, and the territories phone company Northwestel (in their 1999/2000 directory) began using NU anyway so they finally caved in.

Duplicate: Quebec (code was PQ, now officially QC)

The Canada Post designator for Quebec was PQ, for "Province du Qu�bec", until 1993 when it was changed to the current QC.

Incorrect: Newfoundland and Labrador (code was NF, now officially NL)

The name of Canada's most easterly province was changed from Newfoundland to Newfoundland and Labrador on 2001-11-20. Canada Post changed the postal designator from NF to NL on 2002-10-21.

Canadian province codes are at http://www.canadapost.ca/personal/tools/pg/manual/b03-e.asp#c013

Current cstates() list:
Alberta
Ontario
British Columbia
Prince Edward Island
New Brunswick
Newfoundland
Saskatchewan
Nova Scotia
Yukon
Northwest Territories
Quebec
Quebec

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: state abbreviations

Robert, there's little that Bill can do about this. He doesn't work for AlphaSoftware. Why not send your findings to Ed Larrabee or Selwyn Rabins at Alpha ?

-- tom

[whanigsberg]

RE: state abbreviations

Hi again,

Tom, Bob knows me and that I do not work for AS. (He even put me up in his home one night when I was in Ottawa.) What's more, he's done us all a service by actually verifying the list cstates() generates which it never occurred to me to do.

At a deeper level, Bob's discovery highlights the difficulty in relying on a function to generate what is, after all, data.

Data can change and when it does we should not have to rewrite functions whether user defined or built in. In my opinion this argues for the lookup table approach to the problem.

I'll call this thread to Ed's attention.

Bill

[RJGowan]

RE: state abbreviations

Hi Tom:
Yes indeed, I should have cc'd Ed. Glad to see Bill has followed up and done so.
Bob