NAME

Geography::States - Map states and provinces to their codes, and vica versa.

SYNOPSIS

 use Geography::States;

 my $obj = Geography::States -> new (COUNTRY [, STRICT]);

EXAMPLES

 my $canada = Geography::States -> new ('Canada');

 my  $name          =  $canada -> state ('NF');      # Newfoundland.
 my  $code          =  $canada -> state ('Ontario'); # ON.
 my ($code, $name)  =  $canada -> state ('BC');      # BC, British Columbia.
 my  @all_states    =  $canada -> state;             # List code/name pairs.

DESCRIPTION

This module lets you map states and provinces to their codes, and codes to names of provinces and states.

The Geography::States -> new () call takes 1 or 2 arguments. The first, required, argument is the country we are interested in. Current supported countries are USA, Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, and Australia. If a second non-false argument is given, we use strict mode. In non-strict mode, we will map territories and alternative codes as well, while we do not do that in strict mode. For example, if the country is USA, in non-strict mode, we will map GU to Guam, while in strict mode, neither GU and Guam will be found.

The state() method

All queries are done by calling the state method in the object. This method takes an optional argument. If an argument is given, then in scalar context, it will return the name of the state if a code of a state is given, and the code of a state, if the argument of the method is a name of a state. In list context, both the code and the state will be returned.

If no argument is given, then the state method in list context will return a list of all code/name pairs for that country. In scalar context, it will return the number of code/name pairs. Each code/name pair is a 2 element anonymous array.

Arguments can be given in a case insensitive way; if a name consists of multiple parts, the number of spaces does not matter, as long as there is some whitespace. (That is "NewYork" is wrong, but "new YORK" is fine.)

ODDITIES AND OPEN QUESTIONS

I found conflicting abbreviations for the US Northern Mariana Islands, listed as NI and MP. I picked MP from the USPS site.

One site listed Midway Islands as having code MD. It is not listed by the USPS site, and because it conflicts with Maryland, it is not put in this listing.

The USPS also has so-called Military "States", with non-unique codes. Those are not listed here.

Canada's Quebec has two codes, the older PQ and the modern QC. Both PQ and QC will map to Quebec, but Quebec will only map to QC. With strict mode, PQ will not be listed. Similary, Newfoundland has an old code NF, and a new code NL (the province is now called Newfoundland and Labrador).

DEVELOPMENT

The current sources of this module are found on github, git://github.com/Abigail/geography--states.git.

AUTHOR

Abigail mailto:geography-states@abigail.be.

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

Copyright (C) 1999 - 2001, 2009 by Abigail.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.