Parse address from NSString without NSDataDetector

Question

I have been using NSDataDetector to parse address out of strings and for the most part it does a good job. However on address' similar to this one it does not detect it.

6200 North Evan Blvd Suit 487 Highland UT 84043

Currently I am using this code:

NSError *error = nil;
NSDataDetector *detector = [NSDataDetector dataDetectorWithTypes:NSTextCheckingTypeAddress error:&error];


NSArray *matches = [detector matchesInString:output options:0 range:NSMakeRange(0, [output length])];

for (NSTextCheckingResult *match in matches) {
    if ([match resultType] == NSTextCheckingTypeAddress) {

        _address = [_tesseractData substringWithRange:[match range]];
        NSDictionary *data = [match addressComponents];

        _zip = [data objectForKey:@"ZIP"];
        if (_zip) {
            NSRange zipRange = [_tesseractData rangeOfString:_zip];
            if (zipRange.location != NSNotFound) {
                [_tesseractData deleteCharactersInRange:zipRange];
            }
        }

        _city = [data objectForKey:@"City"];
        if (_city) {
            NSRange cityRange = [_tesseractData rangeOfString:[_city uppercaseString]];
            if (cityRange.location != NSNotFound) {
                [_tesseractData deleteCharactersInRange:cityRange];
            }
        }
        _city = [_city capitalizedString];

        _state = [data objectForKey:@"State"];

        _street = [data objectForKey:@"Street"];
        if (_street) {
            NSRange streetRange = [_tesseractData rangeOfString:[_street uppercaseString]];
            if (streetRange.location != NSNotFound) {
                [_tesseractData deleteCharactersInRange:streetRange];
            }
        }
        _street = [_street capitalizedString];

    }
}

Can anyone suggest a more robust method for parsing out the physical address out of a string? I need to be able to get the Zip, Street, State and City.

Answer 1

A NSDataDetector is a NSRegularExpression subclass, so maybe you could create a customized instance and start by checking what Apple puts as pattern and options parameters.

---

Something along this lines:

NSDataDetector * dataDetectorRegEx = [NSDataDetector dataDetectorWithTypes:NSTextCheckingTypeAddress error:&error];
NSString * dataDetectorPattern = dataDetectorRegEx.pattern;
NSLog(@"Check out this pattern!: %@", dataDetectorPattern);

// Customize the pattern for your special cases
NSString * customPattern = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"<MY_OTHER_PATERNS + %@>", dataDetectorPattern];
NSRegularExpression * customDataDetectorLikeRegEx = [NSRegularExpression regularExpressionWithPattern:customPattern options:someOptions error:&error];

Answer 2

You can try parse the address information with regular expressions (RegEx), I think that is more robust way. See the following reference to work with RegEx: Making RegEx Easy in Objective-C, Objective-C RegEx Categories is available on GitHub.