Question

Using V3 of the google maps API, is there any reliable way to format addresses with the line break? By this, I mean something like 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043 should be formatted as

1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Looking through the response object from geocoding, there is an address_components array that has, for the above address, 8 components (not all of the components are used for the address):

0: Object
    long_name: "1600"
    short_name: "1600"
    types: Array[1]
        0: "street_number"
        length: 1
1: Object
    long_name: "Amphitheatre Pkwy"
    short_name: "Amphitheatre Pkwy"
    types: Array[1]
        0: "route"
        length: 1
2: Object
    long_name: "Mountain View"
    short_name: "Mountain View"
    types: Array[2]
        0: "locality"
        1: "political"
        length: 2
3: Object
    long_name: "San Jose"
    short_name: "San Jose"
    types: Array[2]
        0: "administrative_area_level_3"
        1: "political"
        length: 2
4: Object
    long_name: "Santa Clara"
    short_name: "Santa Clara"
    types: Array[2]
        0: "administrative_area_level_2"
        1: "political"
        length: 2
5: Object
    long_name: "California"
    short_name: "CA"
    types: Array[2]
        0: "administrative_area_level_1"
        1: "political"
        length: 2
6: Object
    long_name: "United States"
    short_name: "US"
    types: Array[2]
        0: "country"
        1: "political"
        length: 2
7: Object
    long_name: "94043"
    short_name: "94043"
    types: Array[1]
        0: "postal_code"
        length: 1

I was thinking that you could just combine parts that you want, like

sprintf("%s %s<br />%s, %s %s",
        array[0].short_name,
        array[1].short_name,
        array[2].short_name,
        array[5].short_name,
        array[7].short_name)

[edit]I just realized that sprintf isn’t defined by default in JavaScript, so just a concatenation would do I guess.[/edit]

But that seems awfully unreliable. Does anyone know the details on the structure of address_components, and if it’s reliably similar like that for street addresses in the US? If I wanted to, I guess I could look for the proper types (street_number,route, etc) as well.

I’d love it if anyone had a better way than what I”m doing here…

Answer 1

Or…. (again, assuming US addresses)… there are CASS-Certified services which will do it for you. For example, I work for a company called SmartyStreets and we do address verification. Google, on the other hand, does address approximation and not all the results you get will be accurate; it makes best guesses. CASS-Certified software is going to be reliable and accurate.

The LiveAddress API returns results from a simple REST request. Here’s a snippet of the JSON result of the address you used above:

 "delivery_line_1":"1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy",
 "last_line":"Mountain View CA 94043-1351"

So here it’s automatically been standardized and correctly delimited by line breaks for you. I think you will find it to be of some use (plus, it’s free). Let me know if you have any questions; I’ll assist you.