Every once in a while our users need to analyze their addresses at a very granular level. While it’s true that our “everything” file contains a lot of data, it groups all of the street address data into a single field. Did you know that street address line can contain elements from about 9 smaller components? So, now we’re providing one more output file that includes all address information, broken down into as many meaningful components as possible. We’re calling it the components file, and we hope it will be useful to you as you do address verification.
Important Note: For those of you tasked with storing address data in a database or spreadsheet we recommend against storing the individual street address line components without storing the entire delivery line as a separate field. Believe us–there isn’t a good way to get these components back into a format that is appropriate for mailing because of the various ways addresses are formed (PO Box, Rural Routes, street addresses, PMB’s, military addresses, etc…). So, always store the entire delivery line (street addres). Once you’ve done that you can also safely store the components as separate fields.