When are noise characters going to be implemented?

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09-27-2011 09:45 AM
JulieKanzler
New Contributor II
I need to ignore spaces when matching alphanumeric house numbers (e.g., "101A" matches to "101 A"). It seems like the noise characters found in the XML configuration would be the ideal way of handling this. Am I correct? But I see based on the "Customizing..." white paper that they aren't yet implemented. Anyone know when they will be implemented? Or have ideas for a work-around? Thanks!
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14 Replies
JulieKanzler
New Contributor II
hmmm... in doing some testing, the noise characters do appear to be implemented (for some fields, at least).
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BradNiemand
Esri Regular Contributor
What style are you trying to build a locator with?  Single House, Dual Ranges?

Brad
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ThibautDelaere1
Occasional Contributor
hmmm... in doing some testing, the noise characters do appear to be implemented (for some fields, at least).

In the standard US address style they seem only implemented for the 'Street' field. You could alter the address style and make them work for other fields.
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JulieKanzler
New Contributor II
ThibautD - you are correct; they are only ignored in the street column. If you have a space in the address number, the user must also enter a space to match it. If the reference data leaves out the space, an address with a space in the house number won't match. Seems inconsistent with the concept of geocoding. And the old 9.3 geocoders had no problem with this. Brad- I am trying to customize the US Single Address locator. Any ideas?
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JulieKanzler
New Contributor II
Oh and ThibautD, you suggested fixing the problem by editing the style, and I am trying to do just that. But it's not clear how when the noise_chars don't appear to be field-specific. They are just under grammar>spelling>character_equivalency_table. Thanks for your help.
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BradNiemand
Esri Regular Contributor
Do you have any of the Service Packs installed?

Brad
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JulieKanzler
New Contributor II
I'm at ArcGIS 10 service pack 2
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BradNiemand
Esri Regular Contributor
First things first, you are correct, spelling tables only apply to street name.  We will work to apply these to more fields in SP3.

Unfortunately, if you would like to do this to house number there are a few changes that will need to be made.

First go here:

<mapping_schema name="SingleAddress" geom_type="point">

Under this mapping_schema look for

<field name="StreetName" grammar_ref="StName">

You will find the following section:

            <scoring_method ref="calculate_score">
              <init_properties>
                <prop name="CharacterTable">scoring</prop>
              </init_properties>
              <parameter>
                <input_value />
              </parameter>
              <parameter>
                <field_value ref="StreetName" />
              </parameter>
            </scoring_method>

This is how you apply spelling to other components of the mapping_schema.  Something like this:

          <field name="House" grammar_ref="House">
            <desc>House number</desc>
            <preferred_name>HN</preferred_name>
            <preferred_name>ADDRESS</preferred_name>
            <scoring_method ref="calculate_score">
              <init_properties>
                <prop name="CharacterTable">scoring</prop>
              </init_properties>
              <parameter>
                <input_value />
              </parameter>
              <parameter>
                <field_value ref="House" />
              </parameter>
            </scoring_method>
          </field>

As for House Number though, it is indexed for the Single House Style so in addition to the changes above, you will need to change the reference in the reference_data_style section as well.

This is the start of that section.  Search for  "Single House (Address Points)":

    <ref_data_styles>

      <!--Reference data style for Single House (Address Points)-->

      <ref_data_style>
        <name>Single House</name>
        <desc>US Single House Addresses</desc>
        <table_roles>
          <table_role name="Primary">
            <display_name>Primary Table</display_name>
            <desc>Address feature class</desc>
            <field_roles>
              <field_role name="Primary.Shape" is_geometry="true">
                <display_name>Geometry</display_name>
                <preferred_name>Shape</preferred_name>


Now you will need to change the mapping schema reference from SingleAddressSearch to SingleAddressPolygonCentroid.

        <data_source type="indexed">
          <mapping_schema ref="SingleAddressSearch" />

to

        <data_source type="indexed">
          <mapping_schema ref="SingleAddressPolygonCentroid" />

This should do it but I may have forgot something.  Let me know how it works.

Brad
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JulieKanzler
New Contributor II
Thanks, Brad - that helped! Just one question - is there a data dictionary or other reference for the XML format used in the locator configuration file. I found the "Customizing Locators in ArcGIS 10" whitepaper and assumed that was it, but there's nothing in there documenting these different mapping schemas. The comments in the xml file help, but I still don't have a sense of when I would point to one versus another.

Thanks again!
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