Regular expression for address field validation

Question

I am trying to write a regular expression that facilitates an address  example 21-big walk way or 21 St Elizabeth s drive I came up with the following regular expression but I am not too keen to how to incorporate all the characters  alphanumeric  space dash  full stop  apostrophe     regexp   A-Za-z-0-99999999

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Regular expression for simple address validation       0-9a-zA-Z s -      E g  for Address match case    1  North Street  Chennai - 11    E g  for Address not match case   1  North Street  Chennai   11

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In case if you don t have a fixed format for the address as mentioned above  I would use regex expression just to eliminate the symbols which are not used in the address  like specialized sybmols -  amp         Result would be    A-Za-z0-9    - s

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As a simple one line expression recommend this     a-zA-z0-9        - s  2 255

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I have succesfully used    Dim regexString   New stringbuilder     With regexString         Append     lt h gt    d         lt s gt                         find the 2013 1st ambonstreet          Append     lt s gt         lt h gt      d         lt e gt   D         find the 1-7-4 Dual Ampstreet 130 A         Append     lt s gt    D         lt h gt   d      lt e gt              find the Terheydenlaan 320 B3          Append     lt s gt         lt h gt  d                           find the 245e oosterkade 9     End With      Dim Address As Match   Regex Match DataRow  customerAddressLine1    regexString ToString    RegexOptions Multiline       If Not String IsNullOrEmpty Address Groups  s   Value  Then StreetName   Address Groups  s   Value     If Not String IsNullOrEmpty Address Groups  h   Value  Then HouseNumber   Address Groups  h   Value     If Not String IsNullOrEmpty Address Groups  e   Value  Then Extension   Address Groups  e   Value   The regex will attempt to find a result  if there is none  it move to the next alternative  If no result is found  none of the 4 formats where present

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Here is the approach I have taken to finding addresses using regular expressions  A set of patterns is useful to find many forms that we might expect from an address starting with simply a number followed by set of strings  ex  1 Basic Road  and then getting more specific such as looking for  quot P O  Box quot    quot c o quot    quot attn  quot   etc  Below is a simple test in python  The test will find all the addresses but not the last 4 items which are company names  This example is not comprehensive  but can be altered to suit your needs and catch examples you find in your data  import re strings          701 FIFTH AVE        2157 Henderson Highway        Attn  Patent Docketing        HOLLYWOOD  FL 33022-2480        1940 DUKE STREET        111 MONUMENT CIRCLE  SUITE 3700        c o Armstrong Teasdale LLP        1 Almaden Boulevard        999 Peachtree Street NE        P O  BOX 2903        2040 MAIN STREET        300 North Meridian Street        465 Columbus Avenue        1441 SEAMIST DR         2000 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE  N W         465 Columbus Avenue        28 STATE STREET        P O  Drawer 800889         2200 CLARENDON BLVD         840 NORTH PLANKINTON AVENUE        1025 Connecticut Avenue  NW        340 Commercial Street        799 Ninth Street  NW        11318 Lazarro Ln        P O  Box 65745        c o Ballard Spahr LLP        8210 SOUTHPARK TERRACE        1130 Connecticut Ave   NW  Suite 420        465 Columbus Avenue        quot BANNER  amp  WITCOFF   LTD quot        quot CHIP LAW GROUP quot        quot HAMMER  amp  ASSOCIATES  P C  quot        quot MH2 TECHNOLOGY LAW GROUP  LLP quot      patterns          quot c  o   w   2   quot        quot C  O   w   2   quot        quot P O     w   2   quot        quot P O     w   2   quot        quot   w    2 5  BOX   d  2 8  quot        quot     d  1 7    w   2   quot        quot  A-Z  2 2    d  5 5  quot        quot Attn    w  2   quot        quot ATTN    w  2   quot        quot Attention    w  2   quot        quot ATTENTION    w  2   quot    contact list      total count   len strings  found count   0 for string in strings      pat no   1     for pattern in patterns          match   re search pattern  string strip            if match              print  quot Item found   quot    match group 0     quot    Pattern no   quot    str pat no               found count    1         pat no    1  print  quot -- Total   quot    str total count     quot  Found   quot    str found count

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See the answer to this question on address validating with regex  regex street address match The problem is  street addresses vary so much in formatting that it s hard to code against them  If you are trying to validate addresses  finding if one isn t valid based on its format is mighty hard to do  This would return the following address  253 N  Cherry St     anything with its same format   d 1 5  s w  s  b w  b s  1 2  w     This allows 1-5 digits for the house number  a space  a character followed by a period  for N  or S    1-2 words for the street name  finished with an abbreviation  like st  or rd    Because regex is used to see if things meet a standard or protocol  which you define   you probably wouldn t want to allow for the addresses provided above  especially the first one with the dash  since they aren t very standard  you can modify my above code to allow for them if you wish--you could add  -    to allow for a dash but not require one  In addition  http   rubular com  is a quick and interactive way to learn regex  Try it out with the addresses above

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Regex is a very bad choice for this kind of task  Try to find a web service or an address database or a product which can clean address data instead   Related    Address validation using Google Maps API

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Just to add to Serzas  answer since don t have enough reps  to comment   alphabets and numbers can effectively be replaced by  w for words  Additionally apostrophe comma period and hyphen doesn t necessarily need a backslash  My requirement also involved front and back slashes so    and finally whitespaces with  s  The working regex for me  as such was    pattern     w  -     s

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This one worked for me    d        A-Za-z0-9 -           Avenue Lane Road Boulevard Drive Street Ave Dr Rd Blvd Ln St       The source  https   www codeproject com Tips 989012 Validate-and-Find-Addresses-with-RegEx

[regex] Regular expression for address field validation

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