Internal server errors on incomplete addresses

[giacecco]

Basic requests like the one below - where the postcode is missing - return an internal server error (oddly formatted as HTML, too):

.../~$ curl --data "address=22 greenway berkhamsted" https://sorting-office.openaddressesuk.org/address
<h1>Internal Server Error</h1>.../~$ 

An incomplete address should be recognised as such, possibly with a null postcode result. What do you reckon?

[pezholio]

This is now done. A request without a postcode now returns a 400 header and an error message.

[giacecco]

@pezholio sorry but I don't think that is correct. An address without a postcode is still worth parsing. We'll have plenty coming from one of the partners we may be working soon. I believe we should manage missing postcodes in the same way we manage missing towns etc.

[pezholio]

Parsing anything without a postcode is going to be difficult as the parsing all cascades down from there. For example, when we match a town, we check if it's in the right postcode area first, otherwise we can't be sure where we're getting the town from. Similarly, with localities we check the locality match is within reasonable bounds before accepting it, same with streets too.

[giacecco]

Worth having a chat with @MurrayData about this? there must be a sensible way of parsing postcode-less addresses

[pezholio]

Possibly, but it will add a quite heavy layer of complexity I'd imagine. The logic is similar to the way he worked through addresses in the Companies House ETL (albeit without the ElasticSearch layer)

[giacecco]

Please proceed, at least to assess the complexity. We will decide together if it is worth proceeding to implementation and well.

[pezholio]

I think this should be considered an addition, as the original brief was:

"Re-write as a re-usable software component the algorithm that is currently part of the Corporates House ETL that interprets free-text addresses."

[giacecco]

Fine, but can you make the chat with John within the original points?

[pezholio]

Yeah, no probs 👍