I've got a bit of code that takes mailing addresses and compares them against the US Postal Service Webpage.

I need help getting Perl to Interpret or Ignore certain parts of the address.

Example

(user enters)
$address = "1313 Mockingbird Lane";

(postal service returns)
$post_address = "1313 MOCKINGBIRD LN";

if ($address ne $post_address) {
print "ERROR";
}

I get an error because the two don't match on "LANE vs. LN"

(I've taken care of the case-sensitivity by converting $address to uppercase.)

What I need help on is someway to tell Perl to accept either LANE or LN; DRIVE or DR; E. or EAST, etc. (it's the abbreviations that are causing me grief)

Any suggestions?

Right now I compare Address, City, State and Zipcode separately.

Have you tried using patterns such as "(lane|ln)" and "(east|E)"?

Or, you can do something like:


This way you can force both address to have the same ordinal and road naming.

Philip
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Limecat is not pleased.