Re: couple of general questions

Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
>
> I must have come over somewhat stronger than I intended.
> It was supposed to be just a passing comment. The reason
> I picked up on it is because it's the first thing people
> think of when looking for a reason for fixed length fields
> and (as pointed out on this thread) it's not even valid
> for the whole of the US.
>

Correction. The two character field *is* valid for the whole US. All the
places the USPS delivers have legit 2 character codes, listed
conveniently at:

http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/usps_abbreviations.html#states

This includes DC, PR, AE, etc. The USPS even refers to them as "states"
(their quotes) when referring to non-state entities such as the Armed
Forces.

That all being said, I've seen too many Web sites that have only the 50
states (plus usually DC) available in a state drop down. Increase that
to include all 60 or so from the above URL, and it's good design for,
say, an online company that only delivers via the USPS, because it
eliminates data entry errors. On the other hand, a site that caters to
an international base, needs more than just that.

--
Richard Seymour : Anarchy Software, Inc.
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