Re: FN-FORUM: Postcode distance matching

date posted 1st February 2005 15:18

Hmm... Have found this:

http://www.jibble.org/ukpostcodes/

Which seems to be a list of postcodes and coordinates that *might* be
usable for this kind of thing. When a store is popped into the tables,
match it's postcode with the list and populate the X and Y coordinates
in the store table by checking it against this lookup table.

Then get a list of the closest stores by looking up the X and Y
coordinate of the postcode being searched and doing:

select * from stores order by (searchplaceX-storeX)+(searchplaceY-storey)

which would bring back a ranked list of stores, closest first. With a
relatively small stores database, it shouldn't even be too slow.

How crazy a plan is that? An off the shelf, guaranteed system would
pretty much certainly be a better plan, but this might be an amusingly
simple way to sort it out.... any thoughts?

Hmm...
Dan


--
http://www.dandylogic.co.uk