Space in Postcode

Question

I have a script that requires the postcode input to have a space in it, if not it will fail. Straight forward, but UK postcodes can have gaps in different places, i.e W1 4SB, NW2 6PT or SG14 1LB how would I change users input, if there is no gap entered to the correct format using PHP?

Answer 1

If it's always in the same place (based on your examples), you could do this:

<?php
//...assuming postalcode has already been loaded into $postalcode...

//If the fourth-to-last char isn't a space, add one in that position
if (substr($postalcode, -4, 1) != " ") {
    $postalcode = substr($postalcode, 0, strlen($postalcode) - 3) + 
                  " " + substr($postalcode, -3);
}

//do whatever with $postalcode you'd normally do...
?>

Probably want to do some more checking around that, like it is a min length, etc. But that should get you going.

Answer 2

Postcodes always end with digit-letter-letter. Simply look for a space at the 4th character before the end of the string and if it's not there, insert it.

Answer 3

The space is actually always at the same position for fully qualified UK Postcodes. It is just before the last 3 digit/letters

So first validate that it is a real UK postcode and it matches the format, then do this:

$postcode = 'E154EZ';
if( isValidPostcode($postcode) ){
  $postcode = str_replace(' ','',$postcode);
  $postcode = wordwrap($postcode, strlen($postcode)-3,' ', true);
}

PS. You can get the UK Postcode validation regexes + extra info from here

Answer 4

The solution that worked is:

$postcode = trim(strip_tags($_REQUEST['postcode']));
$test = $postcode;
if(substr($test, -3) == " ") {
  $postcode = $postcode; 
  } 
  else {
  function stringrpl($x,$r,$str)
 {
 $out = "";
 $temp = substr($str,$x);
 $out = substr_replace($str,"$r",$x);
 $out .= $temp;
 return $out;
 }

 $test = stringrpl(-3," ",$test);
$postcode = $test;
  }