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Delphi Address Verifier

Yildiray Elmaci shares a MapPoint solution developed in Delphi to verify addresses including filling in missing information and returning the lat/lon

I have been working with MapPoint 2002 for only a short time, but already love it because it is easy to use and very compatible with Delphi, my favorite rapid application development (RAD) tool.

I obtained the european edition of MapPoint and installed it. I needed a complete environment for our geo-based requirements. I was not so hopeful because all the other tools that I tried had limitations.

After installation, I switched to Delphi 6. I opened the Project menu and selected "Import Type Library" option.

Which bring up this screen:

I selected "Microsoft Mappoint Control 9.0 (Version 1.0)". Then I pressed Install to add the components to Delphi component palette.

Then I could get the MapPoint components in the Activex tab of the component palette of Delphi 6.

There will be 3 components. From left to right: MappointUtilities, Application, Map.

Now I am ready to use MapPoint in my applications.

I must develop a address verifier for a Transport management software package. This article will focus on the the address verifying and address to lat/lon conversion routine.

First I added a Application object of MapPoint 2002 from Activex Component palette to my form and named it as "Mapp".

In the create event of the main form, I will make some initializations. Here is the the procedure:

As the last requirement, I will give you my split function. This is not related to the subject. This will split the given string using given delimiter and return the item in the given index.

The given address parameter must be a comma delimited address. It is formatted like this:

[street],[postalcode],[city1],[city2],[region],country

The return format will be (if a good address is found):

street,postalcode,city1,city2,region,Lat,Lon

The Country is a must, the others are not. The function will return the first found address filling the empty items. In the returned string, the lat/lon positions will be added at the end.

The country code must be the number. This number can be found in the MapPoint help file.

04: r is defined as resultset for FindAddressResults method.
06: item is defined to use as found address item storing.
12 .. 17: Doing splitting activity to split the given address string to separate address items to use in the FindAddressResult function.
19: The key line. Calling FindAddressResults method of active Map object (mapp) to retrieve found addresses.
23: If one or more address are found then the return string will be created again as comma seperated. Otherwise null will be returned.
27: Return string is being created, using concanate of different address items.
33,34:I am also adding the lat/lon location of the found address to the end of the result string.

For example, if i give to this function this:
Lindelaan,,Zwijndrecht,,ZUID-HOLLAND,176
Note: 176 is the country code of the Nederlands.
I get the result as:
Lindelaan,3331,Zwijndrecht,,ZUID-HOLLAND,176

Or when i give this:
Lindelaan,3331,,,,176
I get again ; Lindelaan,3331,Zwijndrecht,,ZUID-HOLLAND,176 as result.

I hope you find this article useful.

Enjoy.

	MP2Kmag Internet