Zip Code to City/State and vice-versa in a database?

Question

I\'m new to SQL and relational databases and I have what I would imagine is a common problem.

I\'m making a website and when each user submits a post they have to pr

Answer 1

There are libraries that you can buy and import that aren't that expensive. Your problem with them is going to be that you will have an ongoing maintenance cost with it (not a lot). Zip codes change all the time, meaning that in 6 mos or so, your data will be slightly out of date. You might want to look at interfacing with a service like google maps. Here we use a hybrid approach. We spend the amount of the money for updates to the data every 6 months, and if the zip code isn't in the table we verify it against google maps to make sure that information entered is still valid and it just hasn't been entered into our system. If it is valid, we update the system, if not we let the user know that a mistake was made.

Another option would be to ping the USPS website. I believe they have a city/state look up page by zipcode.