customizing locator - adding new address suffix doesn't work

[JohnSchwob]

I am in ArcView 10.  I have downloaded and read the ESRI Geocoding Technical Paper on "Customizing Locators in ArcGIS 10".

My address locator has a suffix "Acr" that I want to match whenever the address ends with "Acres".  I opened the USAddress.lot.xml file in notepad. I went to the section where you define Street Types.  I added the following code to the file.

<def name="_acr" is_alias_list="true">
   <alt>Acr</alt>
   <alt>Acres</alt>
</def>

At the bottom of this section of the code I added

<def name="suf_type">
   <alt ref="_acr"/>

I save the file and when I geocode a set of addresses, it didn't match a street which ended in "Acres" to the Address Locator which for this address uses "Acr",


A related question, how do I know that the geocoding process is using the newly revised USAddress.lot.xml file.  The file is located on my computer in C:\ESRI_ArcView_10\Desktop10.0\Locators.  That is where I found the file when I searched for it.  This is the first change that I have made to the USAddress.lot.xml file.

I would appreciate someone's help.

John Schwob
Office of Planning
Archdiocese of St. Louis

[JeffWard]

You might need to rebuild the locator.  Right click on the locator and choose "Rebuild".

I hope that helps.

[JohnSchwob]

Jeff,

Thanks for your response.  Unfortunately rebuilding didn't work.  It's as if any changes I make to the  USAddress.lot.xml file are just ignored.  I still need to try to find out where ArcMap knows to find this file.  I want to make sure it is in fact using that file.  That is still a mystery to me.

John Schwob

[BradNiemand]

Once you edit the USAddress.lot.xml you will need to re-create the locator, not rebuild it.

ArcGIS always looks for the USAddress.lot.xml file in the ArcGIS Install directory in the locators folder.

Brad