Dutch postcodes containing a space are not found

[PanderMusubi]

Dutch postcodes containing a space are not found. This bug came to light by using Thunderbird Address Book which can open Nominatim for an address.

Examples that do work are:

• Neude without space and Neude with space
• Stadsplateau without space and Stadsplateau with space

Examples that do not work with space are:

• Helling without space (working) and Helling with space (not working)
• Meerveldstraat without space (working) and Meerveldstraat with space (not working)

Example that doesn't work with or without space is:

• Europalaan 34 (een bouwmarkt)

It doesn't matter is the space in the url is a space , a plus + or %20.

[PanderMusubi]

Note that Thunderbird Address Book creates search links in this way. Perhaps it should use more advanced search with named fields? See also https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim#Parameters and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=531285

[mtmail]

Base issue is that Nominatim currently can't handle 4 digit Dutch postcodes, it simply doesn't know where they are. It's been reported in #1009 and we want to fix it with #1011

[PanderMusubi]

I'm referring to postcodes that do have the two letters, such as 1234 AB. Only the space that is in there is not being processed properly. Removing the space is one way of solving it, however many people use the space. Think that is also still the official format.

[PanderMusubi]

@mtmail So if it is know which value is which type, do you advise using named parameters? The Thuderbird Address Book known which part is the street name, postal code, city, etc.

[mtmail]

The 1234AB vs 1234 AB is similar and we'll address that (no pun intended) in the change. Nominatim needs to and currently doesn't understand no space, space, and dash formats in the postcodes. Several countries have similar formats, e.g. United States 5 digit vs 8 digit postcodes (usually dash-separated), Brazil, Great Britain...

Placing the address components into a structured query (&street=...&city=...) as work-around has no effect here because Nominatim search logic is about the same.

[PanderMusubi]

Haha.

If not for a workaround and independent of the issue, would you recommend Thunderbird (and others) using a structured query?

[mtmail]

Structured queries are still marked experimental in our documentation https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim#Search I'd use unstructured, basically list address components comma separated sorted by small->large (house number -> country).

There's quite a few places in the world with are both cities and states (Berlin, Hamburg) or city and county (most metropolitan areas like London). Manhatten (a borough) or Paris Arrondissements (a quarter) don't seem to fit into either a suburb or city definition.

[lonvia]

Duplicate of #927.