README

Summary

Deal with swiss zip codes, cantons and communities, using the official swiss post mat[ch] database.

Installation

Install the gem: gem install swissmatch-location
Depending on how you installed rubygems, you have to use sudo: sudo gem install swissmatch-location
In Ruby: require 'swissmatch/location'
To automatically load the datafiles: require 'swissmatch/location/autoload'

Usage

require 'swissmatch/location/autoload' # use this to automatically load the data

# Get all zip codes for a given code, the example returns the official name of the first
SwissMatch.zip_codes(8000).first.name                   # => "Zürich"(de, 0)

# Get a single zip code, uniquely identified by the 4 digit code and the 2 digit add-on
SwissMatch.zip_code(8000, 0).name                       # => "Zürich"(de, 0)

# Get all names of a zip code for any given language (or all languages)
SwissMatch.zip_code(8000, 0).names(:it)                 # => ["Zurigo"(it, 3)]

# Get the suggested name for a zip code for a given language, avoiding issues with
# zip codes that have multiple or no name for a given language.
SwissMatch.zip_code(8000, 0).suggested_name(:it)        # => "Zurigo"(it, 3)

# Get a zip code by 4 digit code and name, get its add-on
SwissMatch.zip_code(8000, "Zürich").add_on              # => 0

# SwissMatch also provides data over the swiss cantons (Kantone)
SwissMatch.canton("ZH").name(:it)                       # => "Zurigo"
SwissMatch.canton("Zurigo").name                        # => "Zürich"

# SwissMatch also provides data over swiss communities (Gemeinden)
SwissMatch.communities("Zürich").first.community_number # => 261
SwissMatch.community(261).name                          # => "Zürich"

SwissMatch and Rails/Databases

If you want to load the data into your database, or use it in a rails project, then you should look at swissmatch-rails. It provides a couple of models and a data loading script.

Relevant Classes and Modules

SwissMatch Convenience methods to access cantons, communities and zip codes
SwissMatch::Cantons Swiss canton collection
SwissMatch::Canton A swiss canton
SwissMatch::Communities Swiss communities collection
SwissMatch::Canton A swiss community
SwissMatch::ZipCodes Swiss zip code collection
SwissMatch::ZipCode A swiss zip code (a zip code can be described and uniquely identified by either code and city, code and add-on or the swiss posts ONRP)

License

You can use this code under the BSD-2-Clause License, free of charge. If you need a different license, please ask the author.

Credits

Simon Hürlimann for contributions
Swiss Life Select Schweiz AG for donating time to work on this gem.