File: README — Documentation for tracking

Tracking Number (v1.x)

This gem identifies valid tracking numbers and can tell you a little bit about the shipment just from the number—there's quite a bit of info tucked away into those numbers, it turns out.

It detects tracking numbers from UPS, FedEx, DHL, USPS, OnTrac, Amazon Logistics, and 160+ countries national postal services (S10 standard).

This gem does not do tracking. That is left up to you.

New in 1.0

Starting with the 1.0 release the specifications for detecting tracking numbers have been moved into a separate repository (tracking_number_data) that this gem relies on. I did this so a) we can have a single place to document all tracking number types and it can be more of a crowdsourced effort, and b) so clients can be written in other languages easier.

Usage

Checking an individual tracking number

t = TrackingNumber.new("MYSTERY_TRACKING_NUMBER")
# => #<TrackingNumber::Unknown MYSTERY_TRACKING_NUMBER>
t.valid? #=> false

t = TrackingNumber.new("1Z879E930346834440")
# => #<TrackingNumber::UPS 1Z879E930346834440>
t.valid? #=> true

Searching a block of text

This will return valid tracking numbers contained within a block of text.

TrackingNumber.search("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, 1Z879E930346834440 nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute 9611020987654312345672 dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.")

#=> [#<TrackingNumber::UPS 1Z879E930346834440>, #<TrackingNumber::FedExGround96 9611020987654312345672>]

Courier Info

As of 1.0, the possible courier codes are [:usps, :fedex, :ups, :ontrac, :dhl, :amazon, :s10, :unknown]. S10 is the international standard used by local government post offices. When packages are shipped internationally via normal post, it's usually an S10 number.

t = TrackingNumber.new("1Z879E930346834440")
# => #<TrackingNumber::UPS 1Z879E930346834440>

t.valid? #=> true
t.courier_code #=> :ups
t.courier_name #=> "UPS"


t = TrackingNumber.new("RB123456785GB")
t.courier_name #=> "Royal Mail Group plc"
t.courier_code #=> :s10

t = TrackingNumber.new("RB123456785US")
t.courier_name #=> "United States Postal Service"

Service Type

Some tracking numbers indicate their service type

t = TrackingNumber.new("1Z879E930346834440")
t.service_type #=> "UPS United States Ground""

t = TrackingNumber.new("1ZXX3150YW44070023")
t.service_type #=> "UPS SurePost - Delivered by the USPS"

t = TrackingNumber.new("RB123456785US")
t.service_type #=> "Letter Post Registered"

Shipper ID

Some tracking numbers indicate information about their package

t = TrackingNumber.new("1Z6072AF0320751583")
t.shipper_id #=> "6072AF" <-- this is Target

Destination Zip

Some tracking numbers indicate their destination

t = TrackingNumber.new("1001901781990001000300617767839437")
t.destination_zip #=> "10003"

Package Info

Some tracking numbers indicate information about their package

t = TrackingNumber.new("012345000000002")
t.package_type #=> "case/carton"

Decoding

Most tracking numbers have a format where each part of the number has meaning. decode splits up the number into its known named parts.

  t = TrackingNumber.new("1Z879E930346834440")
  t.decode

  #=> {
  #  :serial_number => "879E93034683444",
  #  :shipper_id => "879E93",
  #  :service_type => "03",
  #  :package_id => "4683444",
  #  :check_digit => "0"
  # }

ActiveModel validation

For Rails 3 (or any ActiveModel client), validate your fields as a tracking number:

class Shipment < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :tracking, :tracking_number => true
end

Sometimes it's helpful to have a "magic" tracking number that isn't valid for any of the real carriers, and maybe will have other side effects (e.g., special treatment of a shipping email.)

class Shipment < ActiveRecord::Base
  validates :tracking, :tracking_number => { :except => 'magic-hand-delivery' }
end

Contributing to tracking_number

Check out the latest master to make sure the feature hasn't been implemented or the bug hasn't been fixed yet
Check out the issue tracker to make sure someone already hasn't requested it and/or contributed it
Fork the project
Start a feature/bugfix branch
Commit and push until you are happy with your contribution
Make sure to add tests for it. This is important so I don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
Please try not to mess with the Rakefile, version, or history. If you want to have your own version, or is otherwise necessary, that is fine, but please isolate to its own commit so I can cherry-pick around it.