address is an address parsing library, taking the guesswork out of using addresses in your applications. We use it as part of our apartment search and apartment spider applications.

pip install address

First, we create an AddressParser. AddressParser allows us to feed in lists of cities, streets, and address suffixes. Then we call parse_address on our address string, which returns an Address instance with all the attributes filled out. From there, we can print parts of the address, change them, validate them, create a database model to store them, or anything else.

from address import AddressParser, Address

ap = AddressParser()
address = ap.parse_address('123 West Mifflin Street, Madison, WI, 53703')
print "Address is: {0} {1} {2} {3}".format(address.house_number, address.street_prefix, address.street, address.street_suffix)

> Address is: 123 W. Mifflin St.

AddressParser(self, suffixes=None, cities=None, streets=None)

suffixes, cities, and streets all accept lists as arguments. If you leave them as none, they will read default files from the package, namely suffixes.csv, cities.csv, and streets.csv. Streets is intentionally blank.

You can provide lists of acceptable suffixes, cities, and streets to lower your false positives. If you know all the addresses you are processing are in a small area, you can provide a list of the cities in the area and should get more accurate results. If you are only doing one city, you could provide that single city in a list, and a list of all streets in that city.

Addresses get returned by AddressParser.parser_address(). They have the following attributes:

house_number

The number on a house. This is required for all valid addresses. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St.

street_prefix

The direction before the street name. Always represented as one or two letters followed by a period. Not required. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St.

street

The name of the street. Potentially multiple words. This is required for a valid address. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St.

street_suffix

The ending of a street. This will always be the USPS abbreviation followed by a period. Not required, but highly recommended. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St.

apartment

Apartment number or unit style or any number of things signifying a specific part of an address. Not required. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St. Apt 10

buiding

Sometimes addresses are grouped into buildings, or are more commonly known as by building names. Not required, and often in parathenses. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St. Apt 10 (The Estates)

city

The city part of the address, preferably following a comma. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St., Madison, WI 53703

state

The state of the address, preferably following the city and a comma. Always two capitalized letters. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St., Madison, WI 53703

zip

The 5 digit zip code of the address, preferably following the state. 9 digit zips not yet supported. E.g. 123 W. Mifflin St., Madison, WI 53703

full_address()

Returns a human readable version of the address for display. Follows the same style rules as the above attributes. Example return: (The Estates) 123 W. Mifflin St. Apt 10, Madison, WI 53703

• Add verification of an address through Google Maps API, given an API key.
• Allow custom validation conditions in AddressParser for what counts as a correct address or not.
• Add exceptions for incorrect addresses instead of silent failing and letting user validate.

File support requests and obtain the source from https://github.com/SwoopSearch/pyaddress

• Josh Gachnang
• Rob Jauquet

Copyright (c) 2013 Swoop Search LLC.

This library is released under the New BSD License.