PHP parse street address with abbreviations from text input for search - php

Question

I need to parse a street address in PHP a string that might have abbreviations.
This string comes from a text input.
The fields I need to search are:
street (alphanumeric - might have
building (alphanumeric - might have
number (alphanumeric - might have
area (numeric from 1 to 5)
other (unknown field & used to search in all the above fields in the database)
For example users submits one of this text text:
street Main Road Bulding H7 Number 5 Area 1
st Main Road bldg H7 Nr 5 Ar 5
stMain bldgh7
ar5 unknown other search parameter
street Main Road h7 2b
street main street str main road
The outcome I would like to see as a array:
[street]=>Main Road [building]=>h7 [number]=>5 [area]=>1
[street]=>Main Road [building]=>h7 [number]=>5 [area]=>5
[street]=>Main [building]=>h7
[area]=>5 [other]=>unknown other search parameter
[street]=>Main Road [other]=>h7 2b
[street]=>Main Street&&Main Road
My code so far...but dosen't work with examples 3.,4.,5.,6.:
<?php
//posted address
$address = "str main one bldg 5b other param area 1";
//to replace
$replace = ['street'=>['st','str'],
'building'=>['bldg','bld'],
'number'=>['nr','numb','nmbr']];
//replace
foreach($replace as $field=>$abbrs)
foreach($abbrs as $abbr)
$address = str_replace($abbr.' ',$field.' ',$address);
//fields
$fields = array_keys($replace);
//match
if(preg_match_all('/('.implode('|',array_keys($fields)).')\s+([^\s]+)/si', $address, $matches)) {
//matches
$search = array_combine($matches[1], $matches[2]);
//other
$search['other'] = str_replace($matches[0],"",$address);
}else{
//search in all the fields
$search['other'] = $address;
}
//search
print_r($search);
Code tester: http://ideone.com/j3q4YI

Answer 1

Wow, you've got one hairy mess to clean up. I've toiled for a few hours on this. It works on all of your samples, but I would NOT stake my career on it being perfect on all future cases. There are simply too many variations in addresses. I hope you can understand my process and modify it if/when new samples failed to be captured properly. I'll leave all my debugging comment in place, because I reckon you'll use them for future edits.
$addresses=array(
"street Main Road Bulding H7 Number 5 Area 1",
"st Main Road bldg H7 Nr 5 Ar 5",
"stMain bldgh7",
"ar5 unknown other search parameter",
"street Main Road h7 2b",
"street main street str main road"
);
$regex["area"]="/^(.*?)(ar(?:ea)?\s?)([1-5])(.*?)$/i";
$regex["number"]="/^(.*?)(n(?:umbe)?r\s?)([0-9]+)(.*?)$/i";
$regex["building"]="/^(.*?)(bu?i?ldi?n?g\s?)([^\s]+)(.*?)$/i";
$regex["corner"]="/^(.*?str?(?:eet)?)\s?(str?(?:eet)?.*)$/i"; // 2 streets in string
$regex["street"]="/^(.*?)(str?(?:eet)?\s?)([^\s]*(?:\s?ro?a?d|\s?str?e?e?t?|.*?))(\s?.*?)$/i";
$regex["other"]="/^(.+)$/";
$search=[];
foreach($addresses as $i=>$address){
echo "<br><div><b>$address</b> breakdown:</div>";
foreach($regex as $key=>$rgx){
if(strlen($address)>0){
//echo "<div>addr(",strlen($address),") $address</div>";
if(preg_match($rgx,$address,$matches)){
if($key=="other"){
$search[$i][$key]=$matches[0]; // everything that remains
}elseif($key=="corner"){
$search[$i]["street"]=""; // NOTICE suppression
// loop through both halves of corner address omitting element[0]
foreach(array_diff_key($matches,array('')) as $half){
//echo "half= $half<br>";
if(preg_match($regex["street"],$half,$half_matches)){
//print_r($half_matches);
$search[$i]["street"].=(strlen($search[$i]["street"])>0?"&&":"").ucwords($half_matches[3]);
$address=trim($half_matches[1].$half_matches[4]);
// $matches[2] is the discarded identifier
//echo "<div>$key Found: {$search[$i][$key]}</div>";
//echo "<div>Remaining: $address</div>";
}
}
}else{
$search[$i][$key]=($key=="street"?ucwords($matches[3]):$matches[3]);
$address=trim($matches[1].$matches[4]);
// $matches[2] is the discarded identifier
//echo "<div>$key Found: {$search[$i][$key]}</div>";
//echo "<div>Remaining: $address</div>";
//print_r($matches);
}
}
}else{
break; // address is fully processed
}
}
echo "<pre>";
var_export($search[$i]);
echo "</pre>";
}
The output is an array that satisfies your brief, but the keys are out of order because I captured the address components out of order -- this may not matter to you, so I didn't bother re-sorting it.
street Main Road Bulding H7 Number 5 Area 1 breakdown:
array (
'area' => '1',
'number' => '5',
'building' => 'H7',
'street' => 'Main Road',
)
st Main Road bldg H7 Nr 5 Ar 5 breakdown:
array (
'area' => '5',
'number' => '5',
'building' => 'H7',
'street' => 'Main Road',
)
stMain bldgh7 breakdown:
array (
'building' => 'h7',
'street' => 'Main',
)
ar5 unknown other search parameter breakdown:
array (
'area' => '5',
'other' => 'unknown other search parameter',
)
street Main Road h7 2b breakdown:
array (
'street' => 'Main Road',
'other' => 'h7 2b',
)
street main street str main road breakdown:
array (
'street' => 'Main Street&&Main Road',
)
...boy am I glad this project doesn't belong to me. Good luck!

Answer 2

Thank you for the help! I thought that I should do something like multiple preg_matches.
I just found a PHP extension that does exactly what I want.
The library is PHP Postal (https://github.com/openvenues/php-postal) and requires libpostal. It takes about 15-20 seconds to load the library when you run PHP, after this everything work ok.
Total execution time for parsing: 0.00030-0.00060 seconds.
$parsed = Postal\Parser::parse_address("The Book Club 100-106 Leonard St, Shoreditch, London, Greater London, EC2A 4RH, United Kingdom");
foreach ($parsed as $component) {
echo "{$component['label']}: {$component['value']}\n";
}
Output:
house: the book club
house_number: 100-106
road: leonard st
suburb: shoreditch
city: london
state_district: greater london
postcode: ec2a 4rh
country: united kingdom
All I had to do after this is to replace my labels and format the address.
Hope this will help others, who want to parse a address in PHP.