CleanAddress

Cleanse a residential address

This service is hosted in multiple countries. Select your preferred country to see the appropriate endpoint URLs.

Changing the hosting country does not affect the data returned by the service. However you may wish to select a particular country based on your data residency requirements or network latency.

JSON

Open API

SOAP

Description

Formats, verifies and corrects a given address into a full address.

Non-UK addresses are also handled and produce a MatchLevel in the result of NOK_Foreign. See the options below to control how international addresses are handled.

Credit Usage

Each request to this method consumes 1 Postcoder credit.

Parameters

The following parameters can be supplied to this method

username	username See the available authentication methods. If you are using username & password authentication, specify the username to authenticate as. If you are using API Key authentication and you are not using the JSON, Javascript or ADO APIs, use your API Key here with the prefix `apikey-`, e.g. `apikey-ABCD-1234-EFGH-5678`
password	password If you are using username & password authentication, specify the password to use for authentication. Otherwise leave this blank.
address	address The address to clean. The best results will be obtained when individual parts of the address are supplied on separate lines or separated within a line by commas, but the service will make best attempts to match data supplied in any format.
options	options An array of options that control further details of how this method operates. See the Advanced Options section below for more information.

Advanced Options

The following options can be specified as part of the option parameter. Each option is specified as a key/value pair. The list of available names is shown below, along with a description of the allowable values for that name.

Common Options
Name	Description
ApplicationName	ApplicationName Gives the name of the calling application - used to break down usage by application in the usage reports on the dashboard
Address Formatting Options
There are a large number of options to control how the raw address details are combined & formatted for presentation. They are described in more detail with live interactive examples on the address formatting reference. A summary of the available options is also listed below.
Name	Description
Formatter	Formatter Pick from one of the available formatters to control how the raw address is converted into a human-readable address: `DefaultFormatter` `PAFStandardFormatter` `NoOrganisationFormatter`
MaxLines	MaxLines The number of lines to format the address over. An additional line will be included at the end of the results for the postcode
MaxLineLength	MaxLineLength The maximum number of characters that can appear in each address line
FixTownCounty	FixTownCounty `true` to ensure that the town and county are returned in the last two address lines, or `false` if they should appear in the first available line
FixBuilding	FixBuilding Ensures the building name/number is always placed in the first line
NormalizeCase	NormalizeCase Converts all text in the address except the town name to proper case
NormalizeTownCase	NormalizeTownCase Converts the town name to proper case
UseAnyAvailableCounty	UseAnyAvailableCounty Uses any available county to populate the formatted address, not just the postal county
ExcludeCounty	ExcludeCounty Excludes the county, if any, from the formatted address
UnwantedPunctuation	UnwantedPunctuation A string containing any punctuation characters to be removed from the formatted address
Geocoding Options
Note: Geocoding information is not available for all addresses. Some addresses (e.g. PO Boxes) do not represent a physical location, while for some countries (including Isle of Man and Channel Islands) the data is not currently available. The information requested by these options will be returned wherever possible, but is not guaranteed for all addresses.
Name	Description
IncludeLocation	IncludeLocation Includes location information (latitude/longitude, easting/northing and/or grid reference, depending on country) where possible
IncludeConstituency	IncludeConstituency Includes the UK parliamentary constituency the address is in where possible
IncludeCountry	IncludeCountry Include the ISO 2-character code and full name of the country
IncludeAdminArea	IncludeAdminArea Includes names & codes for the administrative areas the address is in where possible. For UK addresses this can include: `County` `CountyCode` `District` `DistrictCode` `Ward` `WardCode` `Country` For UK addresses, this option sets the `Country` field to the name of the nation within the UK, i.e. "England", "Scotland", "Wales" or "Northern Ireland". This overrides the `IncludeCountry` option that would otherwise set it to "United Kingdom" For US addresses the `County`, `CountyCode` and `District` fields can be populated.
Address Unique Reference Options
Note: Only one unique identifier for each address will be returned. An error will be returned if you set more than one of these options to `true`.
Name	Description
IncludeUDPRN	IncludeUDPRN Set to `true` to include the UDPRN for UK addresses
IncludeUPRN	IncludeUPRN Set to `true` to include the UPRN for UK addresses. This is not available by default and requires additional licensing - speak to your account manager for additional information. When this option is enabled, more accurate premise-level information is also used for the geocoding information used by the `IncludeLocation` option.
Service-Specific Options
Name	Description
DefaultCountryCode	DefaultCountryCode An ISO 2-character code for the country to assume the address is in unless otherwise specified.
DetectCountry	DetectCountry Set to `true` to attempt to automatically detect the country from the provided address information, possibly overriding the default country
Country	Country If `DetectCountry` is set to true, this is taken as additional user input alongside the address to influence the country detection function. The format of this is not enforced, so could be provided as `US`, `USA` or `United States`

Results

This method returns an object containing the following fields:

Status	Status Indicates whether the method call was successful, or if some error occurred. If the `Success` field is `true`, the other results described below can be used to get the results of the method. If `Success` is `false`, some error occurred in calling the method, such as the authentication failed or the account is out of credits. The details of the error can be obtained from the `ErrorMessage` field, and any other results should be ignored
Result	Result Contains the formatted version of the requested address in the `Address` field, and a structured version of the address in the `RawAddress` field
MatchLevel	MatchLevel Indicates how well the supplied address matched to PAF. Possible values are: `OK_Unchanged` - the supplied address matched to PAF without requiring any changes `OK_Corrected` - the supplied address matched to PAF but required some corrections to do so `NOK_Building` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a unique building. More information would be needed to identify a single address within that building. This usually indicates either a commercial building for which an organisation name is required to identify the individual company in it, or an apartment building but no flat or apartment number has been supplied `NOK_Street` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a street. If building information has been supplied it does not match to that on PAF or is ambiguous between two or more different buildings. `NOK_Town` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF. Only the town name could be matched - the street and building information did not match or was ambiguous. `NOK_NoMatch` - the supplied address could not be matched at all to PAF. `NOK_Foreign` - the address appears to be non-UK and therefore has not been matched to PAF.
CountryName	CountryName The name of the country the address is in. This is only populated when the `IncludeCountry` option is set to `true`

Live Demo

address

Lines

Sorry, this parameter type is not currently supported in Live Demo

options

Name	Value
Common Options
ApplicationName
Address Formatting Options
Formatter
MaxLines
MaxLineLength
FixTownCounty
FixBuilding
NormalizeCase
NormalizeTownCase
UseAnyAvailableCounty
UnwantedPunctuation
Geocoding Options
IncludeLocation
IncludeCountry
IncludeAdminArea
Address Unique Reference Options
IncludeUDPRN
IncludeUPRN
Service-Specific Options
DefaultCountryCode
DetectCountry
Country

Sample Code

<!-- Import the Integr8 Ajax API -->
<!-- NOTE: Get your own API key to use in the following script tag from: -->
<!-- https://www.data-8.co.uk/ValidationAdmin/AjaxAPIKey -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://webservices.data-8.co.uk/Javascript/Loader.ashx?key=your-api-key&load=Postcoder">
</script>

<script type="text/javascript">

function CleanAddress(address) {
  /// <param name="address">data8.address. Set up the Lines properties before calling this method.</param>
  var postcoder = new data8.postcoder();
  
  postcoder.cleanaddress(
    address,
    [
      new data8.option('DefaultCountryCode', 'GB'),
      new data8.option('DetectCountry', 'false'),
      new data8.option('Country', ''),
      new data8.option('MaxLines', '6'),
      new data8.option('FixTownCounty', 'true'),
      new data8.option('IncludeLocation', 'true')
    ],
    showCleanAddressResult
  );
}

function showCleanAddressResult(result) {
  // Check that the call succeeded, and show the error message if there was a problem.
  if (!result.Status.Success) {
    alert('Error: ' + result.Status.ErrorMessage);
  }
  else {
    // TODO: Process method results here.
    // Results can be extracted from the following fields:
    // result.Result
    //   Contains the formatted version of the requested address in the `Address` field, and a structured version of the address in the `RawAddress` field
    // result.MatchLevel
    //   Indicates how well the supplied address matched to PAF. Possible values are:
    //   
    //   * `OK_Unchanged` - the supplied address matched to PAF without requiring any changes
    //   * `OK_Corrected` - the supplied address matched to PAF but required some corrections to do so
    //   * `NOK_Building` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a unique building. More information would be needed to identify a single address within that building. This usually indicates either a commercial building for which an organisation name is required to identify the individual company in it, or an apartment building but no flat or apartment number has been supplied
    //   * `NOK_Street` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a street. If building information has been supplied it does not match to that on PAF or is ambiguous between two or more different buildings.
    //   * `NOK_Town` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF. Only the town name could be matched - the street and building information did not match or was ambiguous.
    //   * `NOK_NoMatch` - the supplied address could not be matched at all to PAF.
    //   * `NOK_Foreign` - the address appears to be non-UK and therefore has not been matched to PAF.
    // result.CountryName
    //   The name of the country the address is in. This is only populated when the `IncludeCountry` option is set to `true`
  }
}

</script>

// NOTE: A Service Reference to the web service must be added to use this sample code.
private void CleanAddress(Address address)
{
    // Declare the required options.
    Option DefaultCountryCode = new Option();
    DefaultCountryCode.Name = "DefaultCountryCode";
    DefaultCountryCode.Value = "GB";
    Option DetectCountry = new Option();
    DetectCountry.Name = "DetectCountry";
    DetectCountry.Value = "false";
    Option Country = new Option();
    Country.Name = "Country";
    Country.Value = "";
    Option MaxLines = new Option();
    MaxLines.Name = "MaxLines";
    MaxLines.Value = "6";
    Option FixTownCounty = new Option();
    FixTownCounty.Name = "FixTownCounty";
    FixTownCounty.Value = "true";
    Option IncludeLocation = new Option();
    IncludeLocation.Name = "IncludeLocation";
    IncludeLocation.Value = "true";
    // Invoke the web service method.
    PostcoderSoapClient proxy = new PostcoderSoapClient();
    PostcoderOutput results = proxy.CleanAddress("your-username", "your-password", address, new Option[] {
                DefaultCountryCode,
                DetectCountry,
                Country,
                MaxLines,
                FixTownCounty,
                IncludeLocation});
    // Check that the call succeeded, and show the error message if there was a problem.
    if ((results.Status.Success == false))
    {
        MessageBox.Show(("Error: " + results.Status.ErrorMessage));
    }
    else
    {
        // TODO: Process method results here.
        // Results can be extracted from the following fields:
        // result.Result
        //   Contains the formatted version of the requested address in the `Address` field, and a structured version of the address in the `RawAddress` field
        // result.MatchLevel
        //   Indicates how well the supplied address matched to PAF. Possible values are:
        //   
        //   * `OK_Unchanged` - the supplied address matched to PAF without requiring any changes
        //   * `OK_Corrected` - the supplied address matched to PAF but required some corrections to do so
        //   * `NOK_Building` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a unique building. More information would be needed to identify a single address within that building. This usually indicates either a commercial building for which an organisation name is required to identify the individual company in it, or an apartment building but no flat or apartment number has been supplied
        //   * `NOK_Street` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a street. If building information has been supplied it does not match to that on PAF or is ambiguous between two or more different buildings.
        //   * `NOK_Town` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF. Only the town name could be matched - the street and building information did not match or was ambiguous.
        //   * `NOK_NoMatch` - the supplied address could not be matched at all to PAF.
        //   * `NOK_Foreign` - the address appears to be non-UK and therefore has not been matched to PAF.
        // result.CountryName
        //   The name of the country the address is in. This is only populated when the `IncludeCountry` option is set to `true`
    }
}

'NOTE: A Service Reference to the web service must be added to use this sample code.
Private Sub CleanAddress(ByVal address As Address)
    'Declare the required options.
    Dim DefaultCountryCode As [Option] = New [Option]()
    DefaultCountryCode.Name = "DefaultCountryCode"
    DefaultCountryCode.Value = "GB"
    Dim DetectCountry As [Option] = New [Option]()
    DetectCountry.Name = "DetectCountry"
    DetectCountry.Value = "false"
    Dim Country As [Option] = New [Option]()
    Country.Name = "Country"
    Country.Value = ""
    Dim MaxLines As [Option] = New [Option]()
    MaxLines.Name = "MaxLines"
    MaxLines.Value = "6"
    Dim FixTownCounty As [Option] = New [Option]()
    FixTownCounty.Name = "FixTownCounty"
    FixTownCounty.Value = "true"
    Dim IncludeLocation As [Option] = New [Option]()
    IncludeLocation.Name = "IncludeLocation"
    IncludeLocation.Value = "true"
    'Invoke the web service method.
    Dim proxy As PostcoderSoapClient = New PostcoderSoapClient()
    Dim results As PostcoderOutput = proxy.CleanAddress("your-username", "your-password", address, New [Option]() {DefaultCountryCode, DetectCountry, Country, MaxLines, FixTownCounty, IncludeLocation})
    'Check that the call succeeded, and show the error message if there was a problem.
    If (results.Status.Success = false) Then
        MessageBox.Show(("Error: " + results.Status.ErrorMessage))
    Else
        'TODO: Process method results here.
        'Results can be extracted from the following fields:
        'result.Result
        '  Contains the formatted version of the requested address in the `Address` field, and a structured version of the address in the `RawAddress` field
        'result.MatchLevel
        '  Indicates how well the supplied address matched to PAF. Possible values are:
        '  
        '  * `OK_Unchanged` - the supplied address matched to PAF without requiring any changes
        '  * `OK_Corrected` - the supplied address matched to PAF but required some corrections to do so
        '  * `NOK_Building` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a unique building. More information would be needed to identify a single address within that building. This usually indicates either a commercial building for which an organisation name is required to identify the individual company in it, or an apartment building but no flat or apartment number has been supplied
        '  * `NOK_Street` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a street. If building information has been supplied it does not match to that on PAF or is ambiguous between two or more different buildings.
        '  * `NOK_Town` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF. Only the town name could be matched - the street and building information did not match or was ambiguous.
        '  * `NOK_NoMatch` - the supplied address could not be matched at all to PAF.
        '  * `NOK_Foreign` - the address appears to be non-UK and therefore has not been matched to PAF.
        'result.CountryName
        '  The name of the country the address is in. This is only populated when the `IncludeCountry` option is set to `true`
    End If
End Sub

// NOTE: The php_soap.dll extension must be enabled in the php.ini file.

$address = array(
  "Lines" => array(
    "Unit 2",
    "Venture Point",
    "Stanney Mill Road",
    "Chester",
    "CH2 4NE"
  )
);

function CleanAddress($address)
{
  $options = array(
    "Option" => array(
      array(
        "Name" => "DefaultCountryCode",
        "Value" => "GB"
      ),
      array(
        "Name" => "DetectCountry",
        "Value" => "false"
      ),
      array(
        "Name" => "Country",
        "Value" => ""
      ),
      array(
        "Name" => "MaxLines",
        "Value" => "6"
      ),
      array(
        "Name" => "FixTownCounty",
        "Value" => "true"
      ),
      array(
        "Name" => "IncludeLocation",
        "Value" => "true"
      )
    )
  );
  $params = array(
    "username" => "your-username",
    "password" => "your-password",
    "address" => $address,
    "options" => $options
  );
  $client = new SoapClient("https://webservices.data-8.co.uk/Postcoder.asmx?WSDL");
  $result = $client->CleanAddress($params);
  if ($result->CleanAddressResult->Status->Success == 0)
  {
    echo "Error: " . $result->CleanAddressResult->Status->ErrorMessage;
  }
  else
  {
    // TODO: Process method results here.
    // Results can be extracted from the following fields:
    // $result->CleanAddressResult->Result
    //   Contains the formatted version of the requested address in the `Address` field, and a structured version of the address in the `RawAddress` field
    // $result->CleanAddressResult->MatchLevel
    //   Indicates how well the supplied address matched to PAF. Possible values are:
    //   
    //   * `OK_Unchanged` - the supplied address matched to PAF without requiring any changes
    //   * `OK_Corrected` - the supplied address matched to PAF but required some corrections to do so
    //   * `NOK_Building` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a unique building. More information would be needed to identify a single address within that building. This usually indicates either a commercial building for which an organisation name is required to identify the individual company in it, or an apartment building but no flat or apartment number has been supplied
    //   * `NOK_Street` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a street. If building information has been supplied it does not match to that on PAF or is ambiguous between two or more different buildings.
    //   * `NOK_Town` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF. Only the town name could be matched - the street and building information did not match or was ambiguous.
    //   * `NOK_NoMatch` - the supplied address could not be matched at all to PAF.
    //   * `NOK_Foreign` - the address appears to be non-UK and therefore has not been matched to PAF.
    // $result->CleanAddressResult->CountryName
    //   The name of the country the address is in. This is only populated when the `IncludeCountry` option is set to `true`
  }
}

Request Format

{
  "address": {
    "Lines": [
      "Unit 2",
      "Venture Point",
      "Stanney Mill Road",
      "Chester",
      "CH2 4NE"
    ]
  },
  "options": {
    "DefaultCountryCode": "GB",
    "DetectCountry": false,
    "Country": "",
    "MaxLines": 6,
    "FixTownCounty": true,
    "IncludeLocation": true
  }
}

Results Format

{
  "Status": {
    "Success": true,
    "CreditsRemaining": 1000
  },
  "Result": null,
  "MatchLevel": "",
  "CountryName": ""
}

Depending on your chosen authentication method you will need to modify this request slightly:

Public Sub CleanAddress(address As String)
Dim rs As ADODB.Recordset
Set rs = New ADODB.Recordset
rs.Open "https://webservices.data-8.co.uk/recordset.ashx?service=Postcoder&method=CleanAddressSimple" &
"&username=your-username" &
"&password=your-password" &
"&address=" & address
If rs.MoveFirst Then
If rs.Fields(0).Name = "Success" And rs.Fields(0).Value = false Then
MsgBox "Error: " & rs.Fields(1)
Else
'TODO: Process method results here.
'All the results are available in the first row in the recordset.
'Results can be extracted from the following fields:
'Result
' Contains the formatted version of the requested address in the `Address` field, and a structured version of the address in the `RawAddress` field
'MatchLevel
' Indicates how well the supplied address matched to PAF. Possible values are:
'
' * `OK_Unchanged` - the supplied address matched to PAF without requiring any changes
' * `OK_Corrected` - the supplied address matched to PAF but required some corrections to do so
' * `NOK_Building` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a unique building. More information would be needed to identify a single address within that building. This usually indicates either a commercial building for which an organisation name is required to identify the individual company in it, or an apartment building but no flat or apartment number has been supplied
' * `NOK_Street` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF, but did match to a street. If building information has been supplied it does not match to that on PAF or is ambiguous between two or more different buildings.
' * `NOK_Town` - the supplied address could not be matched to a unique address on PAF. Only the town name could be matched - the street and building information did not match or was ambiguous.
' * `NOK_NoMatch` - the supplied address could not be matched at all to PAF.
' * `NOK_Foreign` - the address appears to be non-UK and therefore has not been matched to PAF.
'CountryName
' The name of the country the address is in. This is only populated when the `IncludeCountry` option is set to `true`
End If
End If
End Sub