Hi,
I'm struggling to understand what you would get from the Royal Mail if you bought their PAF file dataset of UK addresses.
I was expecting that PAF was some form of database which you would host yourself, and the Royal Mail provide APIs into that database.
However, after reading this, I'm presuming that all you get is a series of files containing the data. I can't find any obvious information regarding an API.
- Are there any libraries available to help you handle these files, especially from Java?
- Do you have to parse the file yourself and stick it in your own database, so you can do quick lookups from an application?
- If all this is true, why would you ever bother buying this off the Royal Mail? Aren't all the third party providers, with their web based APIs, just far simpler to use - in terms of both programming and data maintenance?
Apologies if I've missed the obvious on this one, but I find the Royal Mail site lacking in information. I'm beginning to think that I've misunderstood their PAF file offering.
Thanks.