Zip

Working on a project that I want to be able to enter a zipcode into and see whether or not someone offers a service in the area. I am guessing the simplest way to do this would be a simple if/else to search through a database to see if the zipcode entered exists on a list. I have not chosen a design language yet. It's going to either be php or C#.net. I have never done anything with zipcodes so I'm debating on what stlye code would make this easiest and whether to hard code the zip codes or just have a database table with a list of the "good" zipcodes. If you have suggestions I'd appreciate any insight! Thanks

You mean



?

How about



I believe some government agency and/or the US postal service might have data you can use.

That's kinda the idea I was going after. My concern is collecting all that data. Like you said, maybe one of the .gov sites can give me that list. The SQL method is probably the simplest because you just need a list of supported zip codes and if it is not in the DB table you dump the user to a page saying "this service is not available in your area" or something like this. Thanks for the reply. It gives me something else to think about.

Actually a list of zip codes, unless you're looking for proximity data, shouldn't be required. You have a list of service providers and their zip codes presumably if that's what you're searching, you don't need a lookup list. If you want a database that does proximity data I think you're going to have to license this.

I once did a work related project (so I can't share) that tapped terraserver and used GPS coordinates and great circle distance calculation to calculate the distance between two street addresses. You could license terraserver data and do similar. I could tell you how, I just can't share my code since even though I wrote it, it's not mine.