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Sort Canadian address strings into structural buckets

Source: R/normalize_pattern.R
address_pattern.Rd

Reports the shape each address parsed as, without returning the parse itself. The point is triage: run it over a column of addresses and the buckets separate the ordinary cases from the ones that need attention – `po_box` and `rural_route` will never match NAR whatever you do to them, `unparsed` and `street_only` are the rows to look at by hand, and the regional forms tell you which conventions your data actually contains.

This is the same value [normalize_address()] returns in its `pattern` column; use that instead when you want the components too.

Usage

address_pattern(x, known = NULL, ...)

Arguments

x

A character vector of address strings

known

Components the caller already has, as a named list of vectors each length 1 or `length(x)` – `list(PROV_ABVN = "NS", MUN_NAME = "Howie Centre")`. Authoritative: each one overrides what the string parsed to, lands on the returned row, and restricts the gazetteer. `MUN_NAME` is the mailing city and `CSD_NAME` the administrative one, and they are different searches; see [nar_known()] for the full key list and for why the two are separate. `PROV_ABVN` additionally reaches the parser, where it materially changes the result: canonicalization is language-conditioned, so `"avenue"` normalizes to `AVE` in Ontario and `AV` in Quebec.

...

Passed to the gazetteer layer when `con` is supplied, and ignored otherwise – `threshold`, `name_threshold`, `mun_swap_penalty` and `keep_refused`; see [nar_resolve_gazetteer()]. `keep_refused = TRUE` adds a `refused_for` column and resolves the rows the threshold would have left unresolved, flagged with the gate they failed.

Value

A factor, one element per element of `x`, with these levels in this order – each address gets the first one that applies:

`po_box`

A post office box, `case postale`, or general delivery.

`rural_route`

An `RR`/`SS` rural route, with or without site and compartment. Like `po_box`, a delivery instruction rather than a place, and absent from NAR entirely.

`intersection`

Two streets joined by `&` rather than a civic number.

`numbered_road`

A typeless numbered rural road: the prairie `Range Road 272` and `Township Road 514`, New Brunswick's `Route 105`, Ontario concessions and county roads.

`grid`

A numbered street with a quadrant, the Calgary and Edmonton convention – `96A Street NW`.

`numeric_street`

A numbered street with no quadrant: `25th Ave`, `Line 5`.

`french_street`

The French order, with the type leading the name: `rue de Vernon`, `boulevard du President-Kennedy`.

`unit_civic`

An ordinary street address carrying a unit.

`civic_street`

An ordinary street address.

`street_only`

A street with no civic number.

`postal_only`

Nothing but a postal code.

`unparsed`

Empty, or nothing the rules recognised.

See also

[normalize_address()], which produces this alongside the parsed components.

Examples

address_pattern(c("53222 Range Road 272, Spruce Grove, AB",
                  "9819 96A Street NW, Edmonton, AB",
                  "845, rue de Vernon, Gatineau, QC",
                  "PO Box 40, Iqaluit, NU"))
#> [1] numbered_road grid          french_street po_box       
#> 12 Levels: po_box rural_route intersection numbered_road ... unparsed