Nick:
>Does anyone know how the Cityzip.bin and altzip.bin files work with the
>Mapwizard in Maptitude. I have Australian data that I could set up with the
>same file names as the US data so that I can have the MapWizard
>functionality. The other geographic files that Mapwizard accesses are fairly
>logical..however CityZIP and AltZIP are confusing...any ideas??
Each of those .BIN files is a header to a flat file of the same name and
with the extension .FLT, which contains the list of ZIP Codes for a
particular ZIP Code or city/state. The .FLT file is simply a .BIN file with
4-byte integers, one per record, so if you were to rename a copy of
AltZIP.flt to AltZIPflt.bin and created the following AltZIPflt.dcb
dictionary file, you could look at it:
Dictionary for AltZIPflt
4
Code,I,1,4
Each record in the header file gives:
- KEY: the input ZIP Code (an integer) or standardized city/state (a string)
- POSITION: the record number in the .FLT file of the first entry for this KEY
- COUNT: the number of entries for this KEY
Since Australian postal codes are numeric and there are standard two-letter
Australian state codes, as in the U.S., you will be able to use your
versions of these files with Maptitude. Canadian, UK, and other
alphanumeric postal codes, or different ways of distinguishing cities of
the same name, would be a problem.
The AltZIP file lists the alternates for a postal code, including enclosed
postal codes (for PO boxes and companies), former postal codes, and
adjacent postal codes. The CityZIP file lists all of the postal codes for a
post office, and has entries for the various names for a postal code. For
example, our ZIP Code of 02461 is know as Newton Highlands as well as Newton.
So, starting from a file with a record for each pair of postal code and
alternate postal code (for AltZIP), or city/state and postal code (for
CityZIP), a simple GISDK macro can turn file that into the files for AltZIP
or CityZIP. The algorithm, using AltZIP:
For each group of records with the same postal code
Create a record in AltZIP.bin with
KEY = postal code
POSITION = the next record position in AltZIP.flt
COUNT = the number of records in the group
Create records in AltZIP.flt, one for each alternate postal code in the
group
Peter
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Peter Van Demark
Director of GIS Products and Training Phone: 617-527-4700
Caliper Corporation Fax: 617-527-5113
1172 Beacon Street E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Newton MA 02461-9926 Web site: http://www.caliper.com
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