52-annex-c-templating.adoc

Annex C: Templating

To present - on screen or in print form - consolidated address information, such as for an envelope, the address parts need to be assembled in a particular order and perhaps processes to make contractions etc. The logic for this is not contained in core model itself but must be implemented in application code reflecting business logic, as in what it is that implementers need to implement!

This templating annex gives a demonstration of basic templating however users of this model are free to implement their own templates and template logic to suit their needs.

Generating names

Consider the example address:

Unit 4B, 72 Yundah Street
Shorncliffe, Queensland
4017 Australia

The "print out" format is as above where the Address parts, as per Queensland’s implementation are:

Part	Value
Unit	"4B"
StreetNumber	"72"
Street	reference to the Yundah Street, street object
Locality	reference to the Shorncliffe locality object
StateOrTerritory	reference to the Queensland state object
Postcode	"4017"
Country	reference to the Australia state object

Using Feature Naming recursive logic - generating names for the Street, Locality, State & Country objects elsewhere, the address model sees the following:

Part	Value
Unit	"4B"
StreetNumber	"72"
Street	"Yundah Street"
Locality	"Shorncliffe"
StateOrTerritory	"Queensland"
Postcode	"4017"
Country	"Australia"

Thus, an informal template for the example address, given these values could be:

Unit {Unit}
{StreetNumber} {Street}
{Locality}, {StateOrTerritory}
{Postcode} {Country}

This is an informal logic - no formalised templating syntax is used - but it’s obvious to see that you’d place the value "Shorncliffe" where the marker {Locality} exists in the informal template.

Such an informal template will not work for comprehensive address templates as it doesn’t include many potential address parts, such as Unit/Flat information, contractions, building names etc.

The next two subsections use a formal templating logic that can be extended for any level of template coverage/complexity.

Basic Template

This template assembles the parts of an Address in a basic manner, similar to the example in the previous section, and something like this is expected to be the commonly used.

The template, in EBNF form [ISO-IEC-14977], is:

space = " "
comma = ","
letters = "A" | "B" | "C" | "D" | "E" | "F" | "G"
       | "H" | "I" | "J" | "K" | "L" | "M" | "N"
       | "O" | "P" | "Q" | "R" | "S" | "T" | "U"
       | "V" | "W" | "X" | "Y" | "Z" | "a" | "b"
       | "c" | "d" | "e" | "f" | "g" | "h" | "i"
       | "j" | "k" | "l" | "m" | "n" | "o" | "p"
       | "q" | "r" | "s" | "t" | "u" | "v" | "w"
       | "x" | "y" | "z" ;
extra_characters = | " " | "-" ;
numbers = "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | "8" | "9" ;
extended_letters = letters | extra_characters ;
extended_numbers = numbers | extra_characters ;
extended_letters_and_numbers = extended_letters | extended_numbers

geographical_object_name = extended_letters_and_numbers
level_number = extended_numbers ;
level = "Level" space level_number
unit_indicator = "Unit" space
subaddress_number_prefix = extended_letters
subaddress_number_number = extended_numbers
subaddress_number_suffix = extended_letters
street_number_prefix = extended_letters
street_number_number = extended_numbers
street_number_suffix = extended_letters
street_label = extended_letters_and_numbers

locality = extended_letters
state_or_territory = extended_letters
country = extended_letters
postcode = numbers

subaddress = level unit_indicator subaddress_number_prefix subaddress_number subaddress_number_suffix
street = street_number_prefix street_number street_number_suffix space street_label

address = geographical_object_name NEWLINE
          subaddress NEWLINE
          street NEWLINE
          locality, space state_or_territory NEWLINE
          postcode country

Part values for the example above, using these EBNF tokens are:

Token	Value
building_name	"The Manse"
property_name	-
level	-
subaddress_number	"4"
subaddress_number_suffix	"B"
street_number	"72"
street_name	"Yundah Street"
locality	"Shorncliffe"
state_or_territory	"Queensland"
postcode	"4017"
country	"Australia"

The template would result in this the same "print out" value as per the example in the section above:

The Manse
Unit 4B
72 Yundah Street
Shorncliffe, Queensland
4017 Australia

Short Form Template

This Short Form Template is an example of an alternative template to the Basic Template above.

This template uses most of the same layout logic as the Basic Template but it replaces NEWLINE between building_name & property_name with space and makes the following contractions:

• "Level X" → Lv X

• "Unit X," → "X/"

It contracts States & Territories as follows:

• "Australian Capital Territory" → "ACT"

• "New South Wales" → "NSW"

• "Northern Territory" → "NT"

• "Queensland" → "ACT"

• "South Australia" → "SA"

• "Tasmania" → "TAS"

• "Victoria" → "VIC"

• "Western Australia" → "WA"

It contracts Countries as follows:

• "Australia" → "Aust."

• "New Zealand" → "NZ"

This template will also see out short form templates implemented for referenced objects, such as Roads so for the example above, using the Roads Model’s short form template^[1], the street name "Yundah Street" will be contracted to "Yundah St".

Given these changes, the example above would print out like this:

The Manse
4B/72 Yundah St
Shorncliffe, QLD
4017 Aust.

---

1. https://linked.data.gov.au/def/roads#_short_form_template