The Firebird Federation Data Archive

Since we all deal with a lot of common data it makes sense to provide an

archive where that data can be centralised. There have been various

discussions on things like postcodes, zip codes and the like, and

providing a means of combining data from several sources seems to be the

best way forward.



Since the Foundation only covers this planet, and I'm sure someone will

come up with inter-planetary records, we are probably creating a

'Federation' of data sources.



So far I have

COUNTRIES with ISO2 and ISO3 code

  - need to add dialing number/international ref no

GB_COUNTY

GB_TOWN

DE_STATE with state code

US_STATE with state code

CA_PROVINCE with code and space for flags

  - but then I could not load them  ;)



Hopefully people get the idea, and I am sure we will be adding such

things as country flags, and other elements, but they will not be

compatible with a csv download  :(  So I suspect we will have an image

less view as an option for creating the csv extract.



I do have the GB Postcode list, but I'll refrain from posting that

1492000 records making 200Mb of data, and while it has been created from

sources I have control off, I'm not sure on the 'copyright' position

over postcode data. I will have an 'area' code list - the first half of

the postcode - but anything more accurate will need investigating.



Can someone with better SQL skills than me tell me if we can combine the

county/state/province tables to produce a world 'state' list as a view

on the other tables, or will I need to 'build' the larger table via

scripts and 'pump' the data?



Who else has some contributions?

Eating places in the Gamma Quadrant?



Of cause you all have access to Black Crystal communications, so you

know that the link is

username:demo

password:demo



http://ibWebAdmin.lsces.co.uk



I've created a second demo database with the information in, and

ibWebAdmin provides a csv upload/download, in addition to on line editing.



--

Lester Caine

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L.S.Caine Electronic Services