pst: URL [Was: Suggestion]

>I think this is an excellent idea, which will have to be dealt with at some 
>stage.  I think the ph and fax systems exampled are OK, but let me  indicate 
>the problems with a global postal system.  Street address length can vary 
>from 
>country to country.  In the UK for example many houses have names, not 
>numbers.  Countries vary according to whether they put the street number at 
>the beginning or end of the street, and some separate it with commas.  Not 
>all 
>locations have a state/province designations (eg: London, UK and all of New 
>Zealand).  Postal addressing would require identifiers for (variable-length) 
>fields, with perhaps only the country (if that) as a required field.

I can only reply that the postal systems of the world seem to be able to 
deal with this, by reading the address on an envelope from the bottom up. 
 This is a "context-sensitive" parse, where the line above must be 
interpreted according to rules established by the line below.  Since the 
only use I expect for a post: URL would be to enter into a contact 
manager or address postal mail, it seems to me all you need in the URL is 
a way to specify the lines of the address.  In my example I use "/".  Of 
course you would like to pick a delimiter that is unlikley in postal 
addresses so that you do not have to escape it often.


P. T. Withington

<mailto:ptw@pcix.com>  <ph:+1.508.746.9393>  <fx:+1.508.747.2366>
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Received on Friday, 30 August 1996 10:48:38 UTC