Google Geocoding -- parsing address_components that may return differently

Question

I'm using Google Maps V3 api. I am submitting an address search to return the proper geocoded result including the address, name of establishment, and lat/lngs.

My problem is that the response from the geocoder can be formatted differently. It always follows the same structure, but some responses use different keys for the address_components data structure.

For Example, some searches result in:

establishment               -> location name
street_number               -> address street number
route                       -> the street name
locality                    -> the city
administrative_area_level_1 -> the state
postal_code                 -> zip/postal code

whereas, if i were to search a general area, such as "Hampton Beach, NH" i would receive:

sublocality                 -> beach name / area
administrative_area_level_3 -> city/town name
administrative_area_level_1 -> the state
postal_code                 -> zip/postal code

as you can see the two responses have their differences. Is there a known jquery library that can be used to handle these different responses to return a data set of the address components that can be used for a human-readable way?

I will note that the response also returns a "formatted_address" type, which returns it like: "Hampton Beach, NH 03842, USA" OR "Boston University, 1 University Rd, Boston, MA 02215-1407, USA" As you can see, these too are pretty different. I could split by comma, but I'd like to use the actual address_components for a flawless database insert.

Answer 1

Why not have your DB mirror only the following keys?

street_number                    -> address street number
route                            -> the street name
locality                         -> the city/town    
administrative_area_level_3      -> the city/town
administrative_area_level_1      -> the state
postal_code                      -> zip/postal code

Where a locality exists, use that in your request (as it appears to deliver the more detailed info - http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/#JSON )

Where no street name or locality exists, request administrative_area_level_3 and administrative_area_level_1

This would provide you with a full human-readable postal address when the info exists or just the city/state for a sublocality (e.g. beach), as you mentioned in one of the comments.

**I'm assuming you only care about the US.

Answer 2

Addresses are very much a 'human' thing. I think the reason Google's data is so messy is because their source data is messy, but likely similar for one area.

Which parts of the address are relevant to you? If you're just feeding this to a human just give him whatever you have?