FAQ

Some of my addresses were not geocoded. What is the reason?

There are a number of possible reasons, why an address was not geocoded. They are written into the field OUT_GEOStatus. Possible values are:
0:    Geo coordinates are not provided, because you have no more
       geocoding transactions left.
1:    Geo coordinates are not provided, because geo coding is not
       available for this country.
2:    Geo coordinates are not provided, because the Validation Status
       was not V or C.
3:    Geo coordinates are not provided, because geo coding
       reported a no match.
4:    Geo coordinates are provided. The field OUT_GEOAccuracy
       describes the accuracy of the coordinates.

How can I remove the AddressDoctor Excel® Add-in?

To remove the AddressDoctor Excel^® Add-in, you need to perform two steps:

1. Disable the Excel^® Add-in.
   To do this, start your Excel^® and select "Tools" - "Add-ins" from the menu. This will show you the list of all available Add-ins, disable the check box for AddressDoctor.
2. Delete the "AddressDoctor.xla" file from your hard drive

How many addresses can the Excel® Add-In process in an hour?

Depending on your Internet connection speed, approximately 60,000 to 100,000 addresses can be processed per hour.

Is AddressDoctor for Excel® able to process a list without country information?

With multi-country lists you have to indicate the country for each address. But there is the possibility of processing lists without any country specification, if all addresses are from the same country.

The Web Service returns the error message: "The string was not recognized as a valid Boolean value"

The AddressDoctor web service is case-sensitive. You need to deliver all Boolean values in all lower case like "false" or "true".

I am submitting data with accents (e. g. é) or umlauts (e. g. ü) and do not receive a meaningful response. What is wrong?

Most likely your request is improperly encoded. The AddressDoctor Web Service requires UTF-8 encoding. If you are not using a SOAP toolkit, please make sure that you are using the correct HTTP header (Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8) and that the encoding of your data is proper. You can find an article about character encoding at msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa468560.aspx

I receive a server error 500. What is the cause?

The AddressDoctor Web Service will return an error 500 (server error) if the request is malformed. Most common reasons are wrong casing (all tags are case sensitive), incorrect casing of the URL embedded in the request or missing or incomplete tags such as a missing department (must be set to 0). Please make sure that your request is compatible with the WSDL available at validator2.addressdoctor.com

The Web Service returns some of my data in uppercase letters. Why does this happen?

The AddressDoctor Web Service will always return the data in a casing as described by the postal organizations of the destination country (unless the Capitalization parameter is set). So data for the UK or the US for instance, is always returned in upper case.

What character set does the AddressDoctor Web Service use?

 The AddressDoctor Web Service accepts requests in the UTF-8 character set.

What are the average processing time of the system?

The processing time for a single address without enrichments by the AddressDoctor web services is within 100ms to 2500ms.  Including transport time most USA users should expect a response within 1000ms (average).  Submitting additional addresses within a request or providing enrichments will increase this time.

What is the expected availability of the AddressDoctor web services?

AddressDoctor’s web services have provided over 99.9% availability since 2005.  Checks are made from servers in Dusseldorf, Germany and Washington, USA; availability can always be checked at:

www.websitepulse.com/publish/s0e0i4t8q.html

How long does it take to get access to the AddressDoctor system?

Access to the AddressDoctor web services is available within minutes. Simply create a user account yourself and you can start right away.

Understanding SERP Status Values

• ESE0: SERP output not available (for this address)
• You will receive this for addresses not within the CAN databases
• ESE1: SERP attributes provided
• You will receive this for addresses within the CAN databases
This does not necessarily mean that the address is a valid address, just that the address was processed using the SERP processing

Understanding CASS Status Values

• ECA0: CASS output not available (for this address)
• You will receive this for addresses not within the USA databases
• ECA1: CASS attributes only partially provided (some databases are missing)
• You will receive this when processing and a database is missing during initialization of the AddressDoctor software library
• ECA2..4: Reserved for future use
• ECA5: CASS attributes provided
• You will receive this for addresses within the USA databases
• This does not necessarily mean that the address is a valid address, just that the address was processed using the CASS processing

Understanding Geocoding Status Values

• EGCU: Geocoding database not unlocked
• EGCN: Geocoding database not found
• EGCC: Geocoding database corrupt
• EGC0: No Geocode available
• EGC1..4: Reserved for future use
• EGC5: Geocode with postal code level accuracy
• EGC6: Geocode with locality level accuracy
• EGC7: Geocode with street level accuracy
• EGC8: Geocode with house number level accuracy (interpolated approximation)
• EGC9: Reserved for future use

Understanding Mailability Scores

• 5: completely confident
• 4: almost certain
• 3: should be fine
• 2: fair chance
• 1: risky
• 0: futile

Understanding Process Status Values

• V4 Verified – Input data correct - all (postally relevant) elements were checked and input matched perfectly
• V3 Verified – Input data correct on input but some or all elements were standardized or input contains outdated names or exonyms
• V2 Verified – Input data correct but some elements could not be verified because of incomplete reference data
• V1 Verified – Input data correct but the user standardization has deteriorated deliverability (wrong element user standardization – for example, postcode length chosen is too short). Not set by validation.
• C4 Corrected – all (postally relevant) elements have been checked
• C3 Corrected – but some elements could not be checked
• C2 Corrected – but delivery status unclear (lack of reference data)
• C1 Corrected – but delivery status unclear because user standardization was wrong. Not set by validation.
• I4 Data could not be corrected completely, but is very likely to be deliverable – single match (e.g. HNO is wrong but only 1 HNO is found in reference data)
• I3 Data could not be corrected completely, but is very likely to be deliverable – multiple matches (e.g. HNO is wrong but more than 1 HNO is found in reference data)
• I2 Data could not be corrected, but there is a slim chance that the address is deliverable
• I1 Data could not be corrected and is precodey unlikely to be delivered.
• Q3 FastCompletion Status – Suggestions are available – complete address
• Q2 FastCompletion Status – Suggested address is complete but combined with elements from the input (added or deleted)
• Q1 FastCompletion Status – Suggested address is not complete (enter more information)
• Q0 FastCompletion Status – Insufficient information provided to generate suggestions
• RA Country recognized from ForceCountryISO3 Secodeing
• R9 Country recognized from DefaultCountryISO3 Secodeing
• R8 Country recognized from name without errors
• R7 Country recognized from name with errors
• R6 Country recognized from territory
• R5 Country recognized from province
• R4 Country recognized from major town
• R3 Country recognized from format
• R2 Country recognized from script
• R1 Country not recognized - multiple matches
• R0 Country not recognized
• S4 Parsed perfectly
• S3 Parsed with multiple results
• S2 Parsed with Errors – Elements change position
• S1 Parse Error – Input Format Mismatch
• N1 Validation Error: No validation performed because country was not recognized
• N2 Validation Error: No validation performed because required reference database is not available
• N3 Validation Error: No validation performed because country could not be unlocked
• N4 Validation Error: No validation performed because reference database is corrupt or in wrong format
• N5 Validation Error: No validation performed because reference database is too old – please contact AddressDoctor to obtain updated reference data

Please note that for BATCH processing it is strictly recommended to only accept records with Vx or Cx status for automated data updates. Ix records need to be reviewed manually before using these results for any data update whatsoever.

Where does the addressdoctor reference data come from?

In most cases the reference data comes directly from the postal organizations of a country. If this isn't possible, other data suppliers like telecommunication organizations, direct marketing companies, or cartographic offices are consulted.

How do I obtain new databases?

Registered customers may download updated databases in our download section.

What does CASS, SERP, or AMAS Certified mean?

Some countries, like the US, offer an "official" certification process for address validation software. 'Certified processing' is popular for large volume mailings originating in the country and posted within the country.

AddressDoctor version 5 is CASS Cycle N, AMAS 2011, and SERP 2011 certified.

How does AddressDoctor make sure the system is always available?

AddressDoctor employs the most recent technology in order to assure optimal system availability at all times. As a matter of course, the system is checked constantly and hosted on a highly available cluster.  An uptime report is available at: www.websitepulse.com/publish/s0e0i4t8q.html

I receive bad results when validating my addresses. What can be the reason for this?

Unfortunately, it may happen that the result of address cleaning is not satisfactory. The five most common reasons for this are

• Incorrect Field assignment
• Input data is missing too much information
• Necessary fields have not been assigned
• Too many unnecessary fields have been assigned
• Corrupt input data

Is the province information returned by AddressDoctor using the ISO standard?

Province information (defined as State, Kanton, Prefecture, Province, Bundesland or County depending on the country) is returned as typically used by the postal operator in the respective country. In most cases postal administrations define a complete list of abbreviations to be used for addressing.

Which alphabets does AddressDoctor support?

AddressDoctor supports the following alphabets:

• Transliteration of various Latin code page characters ISO 8859-X to Latin (Eastern and Northern European alphabets)
• Greek (BGN/PCGN 1962, ISO 843 – 1997)
• Cyrillic (BGN/PCGN 1947, ISO 9 – 1995)
• Hebrew
• Japanese Kana and Kanji
• Chinese Pinyin for Mandarin and Cantonese
• Korean Hangul

Which character sets does AddressDoctor support?

AddressDoctor supports the following character sets:

• UTF-32 Big Endian Unicode
• UTF-32 Little Endian Unicode
• UTF-16 Big Endian Unicode
• UTF-16 Little Endian Unicode
• UTF-8 Unicode
• UCS-4 Big Endian Unicode
• UCS-4 Little Endian Unicode
• UCS-2 Big Endian Unicode
• UCS-2 Little Endian Unicode
• ISO 8859-1 (Latin_1 - Western Europe)
• ISO 8859-2 (Latin_2 - Eastern Europe)
• ISO 8859-3 (Latin_3 - Southeastern Europe)
• ISO 8859-4 (Latin_4 - Scandinavia/Baltic)
• ISO 8859-5 (Cyrillic - Russia, Ukraine)
• ISO 8859-6 (Arabic)
• ISO 8859-7 (Greek)
• ISO 8859-8 (Hebrew)
• ISO 8859-9 (Latin_5 - Turkey)
• ISO 8859-10 (Latin_6 - Nordic)
• ISO 8859-15
• IBM 437 (US)
• IBM 850 (Multilingual Latin I)
• IBM 851 (Latin II)
• IBM 855 (Cyrillic)
• IBM 857 (Turkish)
• IBM 862 (Hebrew)
• WIN 1250 (Central Europe - Windows code page)
• WIN 1251 (Cyrillic - Windows code page)
• WIN 1252 (Latin I - Windows code page)
• WIN 1253 (Greek - Windows code page)
• WIN 1254 (Turkish - Windows code page)
• WIN 1255 (Hebrew - Windows code page)
• WIN 1256 (Arabic - Windows code page)
• WIN 1257 (Baltic - Windows code page)
• Big5 (Traditional Chinese)
• Shift-JIS (Japanese)
• GBK (Simplified Chinese)
• UHC (Korean Unified Hangul)
• ASCII (ISO646-US)
• EBCDIC (IBM standard 037)

How are PO Boxes returned from AddressDoctor?

PO Boxes (along with other delivery service items) are returned in a discrete field, or as part of an address line.

How can I determine if a postal code is valid for a country?

Use the FastCompletion mode of the Web Service or of the AddressDoctor Software Library and pass the postal code as well as the country. You may then check the ElementMatchStatus value for the postal code (first position) to determine if the postal code exists in that country. If the code exists the first position of the ElementMatchStatus will contain a value of 4.

Is AddressDoctor able to guess the right country?

Even though our engine has some built-in features to detect a country, it will not always succeed in doing this and in some cases the country recognition may even fail. The only way to prevent this to always supply country information in a separate country field.

Does AddressDoctor parse out street directionals or street designators?

The AddressDoctor v5 Software Libraries (API) will return street pre/post directional and / or designators.  However at this time the AddressDoctor Web Services do not have the capability to return this information.

How does AddressDoctor correct / standardize an address?

The process of address validation / standardization can be divided into two actions:
Identifying the address element and comparing the data against reference tables.

In the first step, AddressDoctor tries to identify address elements and assigns them to the correct fields, this is called PARSING.
The identified address elements which are truncated or shortened will be changed to the proper form before the comparison takes place.

Address validation is the second step, in which the pre-structured address data is compared against reference tables supplied by postal organizations.
All relevant data will be used in this matching process. This differs from country to country, because some countries need address parts that are not existing or not relevant in other countries (e.g. post codes or province names), and the detail level supplied for this country. Some countries supply house number or building information, while others only give post codes for town parts. If all relevant input address parts create a single match, the address will be selected as result. This match does not need to be a complete match for all address parts - it can be a partial match for some.
If some of the components create a no match, AddressDoctor will check the addresses that created a match on the most address parts and will try to select the best of these addresses as the result. In many cases it is not possible to fully validate an address, because the matching will end in multi match or no match situation, where many address parts did or did not create a partial match. In these cases, AddressDoctor has a unique deliverability assessment feature that classifies addresses according to their probable deliverability.

Is there a different interface for each country?

All countries can be accessed through the same interface. This is what makes AddressDoctor so unique. Simply learn one interface and process data from the entire world.

What is the size of the AddressDoctor reference database?

The total size of the reference database (world coverage for address validation and geo-coding) is currently approximately 29 GB (as of September 2011). This size is for the more than 240 supported countries and territories, including any CERTIFIED data, supplementary data, and geo-coding databases, because we continuously improve our database this size is likely to grow over time.

Can we extract the postal reference data from the databases?

The postal reference data cannot be extracted from AddressDoctor's reference database, this is due to licensing restrictions with our postal carriers.

How often is the AddressDoctor database updated?

Updates are available bi-annually, quarterly and monthly. The update frequency depends on the product purchased.  Update frequencies can be found on our countries & data page.

Which Microsoft® Office versions are currently supported?

Version 2003 and 2007 have been successfully tested.
Version 2007 should work under normal conditions, unless Visual Basic® was not part of the Office 2007 installation.

In this case the following error message will most likely occur during the installation of the Excel® Add-In:
<q>This workbook has lost its VBA project, ActiveX controls and any other programmability-related features. Errors were detected in file "PATHNAME\AddressDoctor.xla"</q>

This happens because Visual Basic® is an optional Microsoft® Office component but is needed to run macros necessary for the AddressDoctor Excel® AddIn.
You can check if Visual Basic® was installed by taking a look at the Developer tab within Excel® 2007. Click the Office button, select Excel® Options and ensure that Show Developer tab in the Ribbon is ticked in the Popular set and then click OK.
A greyed-out Visual Basic® button indicates that it was not installed when Excel® (or Office) 2007 was installed. To install Visual Basic®, you need the original installation medium (DVD or downloaded file) for Excel® 2007 (or Office 2007) and use the customize option to select and install Visual Basic® for Applications which is located within Office Shared Features (see diagram).

Thus the AddressDoctor Excel® Add-In should function problem-free.

How do I import my processed data into Microsoft Excel®?

Start Excel.
Now select in the "Data" menu the option "Import External Data".

Select the file type of the file you want to import: "Text Files (*.txt;*.csv;*.tab;*.asc)".
Select the file you want to import.

Continue with "Import".

In the next step, select how the fields of your file are separated.Usually the software automatically detects the format and suggests the correct separator, in this example "Delimited".

Continue with "Next".

In the next step, state the field delimiter and the text qualifier.Here in the example we select as field delimiter "Comma" and as Text Qualifier quotation mark "{none}".

Continue with "Next".

In the next step you have the option to rename fields and to change data types.Set the field, which contains only numbers (e.g. ID or cluster sizes) to an appropriate data type, e.g. integer or double.Please note: Never set the data type of fields which contain postal codes to number! This would remove the leading 0-characters. The postal code 01438 would become 1438. This field, as the "OUT_PostalCode" field, should be declared as text.

Confirm your settings with "Next".

In the last step, select if you want to create a new worksheet or if you want to add the data to an existing worksheet.Click on "OK" to complete the export.

I did not receive my activation Email. What can I do to let the system send the Email again?

How long does it take for my data to be processed?

The AddressDoctor Data Quality Center analyses your address data immediately after the file upload is completed. After the analysis, you will receive an email with instructions on how to confirm the job and start the processing. As soon as the Link contained in the e-mail has been clicked, the processing will start. Smaller files of less than 100.000 records are often finished in less than one hour. Larger files, especially those containing additional services, might take longer. However, in most cases these files will be ready within 24 hours. After processing is finished, you will receive an email with download Instructions.

Is it possible to upload my file via FTP?

No, at this time only the browser-based upload is available.

Which file formats can be processed in the DQC?

The DQC can currently process text files with separators and delimiters. Text files with fixed field length or other file formats, for instance Excel, have to be converted before upload.

I would like to have a change of address check (NCOA) performed on my address data. How can I do that?

NCOA processing is available in the AddressDoctor DQC. Please create an account if you do not already have one and fill out the required statement regarding the ownership of the address file. Once you have sent this agreement to our contracts department, the NCOA will be enabled for your DQC account. NCOA is available for Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

I selected the country-specific Casing and English locality name in the DQC for German addresses. Why do I receive the corrected addresses in capital letters only, although the data records should actually be present in upper and lower case?

So that umlauts or other special characters can be converted into the English language, the transliteration algorithm is automatically called in the background. This requires the return of capital letters only.

What happens to non-assigned input fields?

The DQC output file contains all input fields, regardless if they were assigned or not. Following those are the output fields, which start with "OUT_". Non-assigned fields are not considered for address verification.

How long does AddressDoctor save data that has been uploaded in the AddressDoctor DQC?

When the time indicated below has elapsed, the input file (file that the user has uploaded), the corresponding processed data in the database and, if still available, the result file, and the report are deleted.

• Deleted, non-confirmed orders or orders with processing errors: 30 days
• Orders with generated Audit Report, but not yet downloaded: 180 days
• Downloaded Orders: 270 days

How do I export my data from Microsoft Access in order to process them in the DQC?

Start Access and open the file, through the menu "File" -> "Open" or double-click on the Access file. Now you should see a picture similar to this:

Now click the right mouse button on the table which you want to export and select "Export" in the context menu.

In the next step, select the file type of the exported data. Select here "Text Files (*.txt;*.csv;*.tab;*.asc)". You can enter any name or, as in the example, keep the name which is suggested by the export wizard.

Continue with "Export".

In the export wizard you can set the properties of the CSV file. Select "Delimited".

Select "Advanced" to specify more detailed settings.

Code Page "Unicode UTF-8" is selected here in order to maintain the Japanese characters.

Confirm your settings with "OK".

Select as field delimiter "Semicolon" and as Text Qualifier quotation mark """. It's often helpful to select "Include Field Names on First Row".

Continue with "Next".

Click on "Finish" to complete the export.

When you open the exported file in an editor, it should have the following format:

How do I export my data from Microsoft Excel® in order to process them in the DQC?

Start Excel® and open the Excel® file, through the menu "File" -> "Open"or double-click on the Excel® file.

Now you should see a picture similar to this:

Now select from the "File" menu the option "Save As".

In the next step, select the file type of the exported data.

Select "CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv)".

Continue with "Save".

When you open the exported file in an editor, it should have the following format:

Please note that you might have to change your "List separator" in Windows from comma to semicolon to obtain the same result - this isstrongly recommended as your data might well contain commas inside the actual Excel columns:

1. Click the Windows Start menu.
2. Click Control Panel.
3. Open the Regional and Language Options dialog box.
4. Click the Regional Options Tab.
5. Click Customize.
6. Type a new separator in the List separator box.
7. Click OK twice.

You can also select as file type "Text (Tab delimited) (*.txt)" instead of CSV.

When you open the exported file in an editor, it should have the following format:

For comparison, the two output files, formatted from Excel^® by default:

CSV, semicolon delimited:

TXT, tab delimited:

How do I import my processed data into Microsoft Access?

Start Access.

Create a new Database.

Click the right mouse button in the blank space and select "Import" from the context menu.

Select the file type of the file you want to import: "Text Files (*.txt;*.csv;*.tab;*.asc)". Select the file you want to import.

Continue with "Import".

In the next step, select how the fields of your file are separated.Usually, the software automatically detects the format and suggests the correct separator, in this example "Delimited".

Continue with "Next".

If the file contains characters which can't be displayed in the default selected encoding, select "Advanced"to specify more detailed settings.

In this example Code Page "Unicode (UTF-8)" is selected.

Confirm your settings with "OK".

The preview is adjusted instantly: Here you can see the Japanese characters.

Continue with "Next".

In the next step, state the field delimiter and the text qualifier.Here in the example we select as field delimiter "Semicolon" and as Text Qualifier quotation mark """.

If the file contains the field names in the first row, select "First Row Contains Field Names".

Continue with "Next".

Next you can select if you want to create a new table or if you want to add the data to an existing table.Here in this example we create a new table. Since we created a new database in the beginning, there isn't a table to which we can add the data.

Continue with "Next".

In the next step you have the option to rename fields and to change data types.Set the field, which contains only numbers (e.g. ID or cluster sizes) to an appropriate data type, e.g. integer or double.Plase note: Never set the data type of fields which contain postal codes to number! This would remove the leading 0-characters. The postal code 01438 would become 1438. This field, just as the "OUT_PostalCode" field, should be declared as text.

Confirm your settings with "Next".

In the next step you can set the primary key.

This is only necessary if the data sets are not numbered.

Continue with "Next".

In the last step you have to enter the name of the new table.

Click on "Finish" to complete the export.

How can I calculate the distance between two geo-coordinates?

Calculation of a distance between two geographical points in WGS84

It is very complicated to calculate the exact distance between two geographical coordinates since different projections as well as the oblateness of the earth has to be considered. But in most cases a simple formula will help as long as the distance is not too small and the points are not too close to the poles.

You will need WGS84 geo-coordinates in decimal degree (not in degree-minutes-seconds like N 49° 29.296 E 008° 27.722). All geo-coordinates provided by AdressDoctor are in decimal degree.

At first your geo-coordinates need to be transformed into a radian measure. To do this simply multiply the latitudes and longitudes by ?/180 or use in Excel =radiant(X) and =radiant(Y).

You will get the approximate air-line distance with following formula:

d = R * arccos(sin(X2) * sin(X1) + cos(X2) * cos(X1) * cos(Y2 – Y1))

Earth radius R = 6378 k

Example:

Lisbon, Portugal:

x-coord: 9.136523757581143
y-coord: 38.744916875859985

Arnheim, Netherlands:

x-coord: 5.962115675929862
y-coord: 51.98395045710915

Distance:

d = R * arccos(sin(X2) * sin(X1) + cos(X2) * cos(X1) * cos(Y2 – Y1))
d = R * arccos(sin(0.10405855) * sin(0.15946242) + cos(0.10405855) * cos(0.15946242) * cos(0.90729109 – 0.67622637))
d = 1503 km

What is the meaning of the field OUT_GEOAccuracy?

The field OUT_GEOAccuracy describes the accuracy of the coordinates.

To what detail level are addresses geocoded?

Where possible, addresses are geocoded to rooftop level. If this is not possible, they may be geocoded to the street, next fallback is center of a zip code or a locality. The detail level is written to the field OUT_GEOAccuracy. Possible values are:

The address was geocoded

STR

The Center of the street was geocoded

ZIPCD

The Center of a suburb within the postcode was geocoded

ZIPC

The Center of the locality within the postcode was geocoded

ZIP

The Center of the postcode was geocoded

What is the meaning of the field OUT_GEOStatus?

The field OUT_GEOStatus describes the possible reasons, why an address was not geocoded. 

Is the geocode set on the middle of the streets or is it offset?

If an address is geocoded to rooftop, it is offset from the center axis of the street.

Is the AddressDoctor Software Library USPS CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) certified?

AddressDoctor 5 has been first certified by the United States Postal Service in March 2010.  As of July 2011, AddressDoctor v5.2.7 is CASS Cycle N certified.

Is the AddressDoctor Software Library Canada Post SERP (Software Evaluation and Recognition Program) certified?

Yes, AddressDoctor has achieved certification by Canada Post in March 2010. AddressDoctor completed certification for the SERP 2011 standard powered by the new Point of Call Address Data (PoCAD) from Canada Post.

What kind of information do I need to provide when contacting the AddressDoctor Support Team?

You may contact AddressDoctor Support at: support(at)addressdoctor(dot)com.
When doing so, please make sure to provide the following XML files in a ZIP archive, after having run them through the ConsoleDemo application provided by AddressDoctor to check for reproducibility of your issue:

• SetConfig.xml - may be retrieved using AD_GetConfigSecodeingsXML() (in Java: getConfigXML())
• Parameters.xml - may be retrieved using AD_GetParametersXML() (in Java: getParametersXML())
• InputData.xml - may be retrieved using AD_GetInputDataXML()(in Java: getInputDataXML())
• Result.xml - may be retrieved using AD_GetResultXML()(in Java: getResultXML())

How do I analyze error conditions?

For C, AD_GetLastError() provides you with the last error return code and AD_GetExtendedErrorMsg() allows access to extended information pertaining to the last error. Error messages often point to configuration issues that are best analyzed by referring to GetConfig.xml or Parameters.xml.

For Java you use

AddressDoctorException.getExtendedMessage() for that same purpose. Please make sure to wrap AddressDoctor and AddressObject calls with try/catch blocks for proper exception handling – for a more detailed example see the code in the documentation:

try

{   

AddressDoctor.process(m_oAO);   

iLastError = AddressDoctor.getLastError();   

System.out.println("Process returned " + iLastError);

} catch (AddressDoctorException ex)

{   

System.out.println("Exception during process: " + ex.toString());

}

The ConsoleDemo test application in C and Java provided by AddressDoctor may prove helpful in analyzing error conditions.

How do I produce valid AddressDoctor XML?

Any XML input to the AddressDoctor Engine should always be well-formed and validated against the DTDs provided for that purpose by AddressDoctor. Please do note that the sequence of the XML elements does matter (but not that of their attributes), which can be checked through DTD validation as well.

Refer to wikipedia.org/wiki/XML for an introduction to XML. Apart from XML functionality being an integral part of most modern Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), there is a diverse choice of free validating XML editors, like WMHelp XMLPad or XML Copy Editor from SourceForge.net.

When dealing with XML files produced on different platforms, please note that end-of-line (EOL) characters differ between Windows (CR+LF) and UNIX (LF), see wikipedia.org/wiki/Linebreak.

How can I determine when the unlock code will expire?

Calling AD_GetConfigSecodeingsXML() will return a GetConfig.xml with the engine configuration, including unlock code information.

How often is the AddressDoctor Software Library updated?

A new software library is released several times a year. These libraries contain functional enhancements and bug fixes. Registered customers can download these libraries from our servers. Additional update information can be found here.

Is AddressDoctor 5 multithreaded?

AddressDoctor 5 provides optimized multi-threading support presenting you with the ability to harness the power of current multi-core hardware architectures. Using multiple threads, you can scale your address processing throughput efficiently by processing multiple addresses in parallel on multiple processor cores.

Can one key unlock multiple countries or do I need one key per country?

One key can unlock multiple countries. More than one key is only required when the durations of the licenses differ.

How frequently is the reference database updated?

The reference data for geocoding is updated as often as four times a year.

What happens when we try to validate an address that is in a country that AddressDoctor is not able to process? Is an error returned?

AddressDoctor can process and cleanse data from more than 240 countries and territories. There are only few countries for which addresses cannot be processed. Currently (as of Fall 2011), addresses from Ireland, for example, cannot be validated. AddressDoctor marks Irish addresses with N2 (N2 = No validation because there is no reference data available).

Which platforms are supported?

The AddressDoctor software library is developed using the C++ programming language. The resulting API is available for C and Java, provided by a single combined AddressDoctor software library.

While the primary development platform is Windows and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, the library is available for numerous hardware and software platforms. Initially, AddressDoctor 5 library packages will be available for Windows, AIX, Solaris and Linux.

For more Information please click here.

What are the system requirements?

AddressDoctor has been designed to achieve the best possible performance while being highly efficient in its memory and resource usage. In order to ensure best possible performance, a fast I/O system and sufficient memory is recommended. As with most applications, the engine will perform better if more memory and a faster processor are installed. The minimum requirements are 512 MB of memory for validation operations and 128 MB of memory if parsing-only is required. In October 2011, the entire worldwide postal reference database requires around 15 to 20 GB of disk space. To optimize performance, the most commonly used databases should reside in memory. Thus it is recommended to have at least 1GB RAM available, up to several GB are needed for loading the full reference database set into memory. As this might well exceed the maximum amount of memory a 32 Bit operating system can access, AddressDoctor strongly recommends using 64 Bit operating systems in production.

For what countries does AddressDoctor supply Geocodes?

AddressDoctor geocodes addresses for the following countries:

• Andorra
• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium
• Brazil
• Canada
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Denmark
• Estonia
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Gibraltar
• Greece
• Holy See
• Hungary
• Iceland
• Italy
• Latvia
• Liechtenstein
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Mexico
• Monaco
• Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Poland
• Portugal
• San Marino
• Singapore
• Slovakia
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States

Are addresses interpolated or referenced exactly to rooftop?

If a geocoded address contains the value ADD in the field OUT_GEOAccuracy, it is an interpolated house number. This means, the exact coordinates for the address are not contained in the reference database. Instead, the position of a street and the range of house numbers of this street are known. Then, the address is interpolated and offset to the proper side of the street.