I have a situation that's similar to what goes on in a job search engine where you type in the zipcode where you're searching for a job and the app returns jobs in that zipcode as well as in zipcodes that are 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 miles from that zipcode, depending on preferences set by the user.
How would you calculate the neighboring locations for a zipcode?
You need to get a list of zip codes with associated longitude / latitude coordinates. Google it - there are plenty of providers.
Then take a look at this question for an algorithm of how to calculate the distance
I wouldn't calculate it, I would stored it as a fixed table in the database (only to change when the allocation of ZIP codes changes in a country). Make a relationship "is_neighbor_zip", which has pairs (smaller, larger). To determine whether two codes are neighboring, check in the table for specific pair. If you want all neighboring zips, it might be better to make the table symmetric.
I don't know if you can count on geonames.org to be around for the life of your app but you could use a web service like theirs to avoid reinventing the wheel.
You need to use a GIS database and ask it for ZIP codes that are nearby your current location.
You cannot simply take the ZIP code number and apply some mathematical calculations to find other nearby ZIP codes. ZIP codes are not as geographically scattered as area codes in the US, but they are not a coordinate system.
The only exception is that the ZIP+4 codes are sub-sections of the larger ZIP code. You can assume that any ZIP+4 codes that have the same ZIP code are close to each other.
I used to work on rationalizing the ZIP code handling at a company, here are some practical notes I made:
Hopefully has other useful info.
Whenever you create a zipcode, geocode it (e.g. google geocoder api, saving the latitude and logitude) then google the haversine formular, this will calculate the distance (as the crow flies) from a reference point, which could also be geocoded if it is a town or zipcode.
To clarify some more:
When you are retrieving records based on their location, you need to compare each longitude and latitude DECIMAL with a reference point (your users geo-coded postcode or town name)
You can query:
SELECT * FROM photos p WHERE p.long < 60 AND p.long > 50 AND p.lat > -10 AND p.lat > 10
To find all UK photos etc because the uk is between 50 and 60 degrees longitude and +-10 latitude (i might have switched long with lat, i'm fuzzy on this)
If you want to find the distance then you will need to google the haversine formula and plug in your reference values.
Hope this clears things up a little bit more, leave a comment if you need details
I'm confused about this as well.
If you have 50000 zipcodes, you need to compare each zipcode against every other zipcode. Even with caching the results to avoid recalculating, this is an enormous number of calculations.
Unless I'm missing something, that is what would be required.
Am I wrong?