[postgis-users] geocoder

[David Bitner]

Has anybody out there created a geocoder function in pl/sql for use with
postgis?  I don't want to reinvent the wheel if anyone has done this, and if
nobody has done this, I would love to get any pointers on how best to start.

Completely within postgis I would like to be able to use a function like:
select geocode("5555 Address Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55555") from streets_db
or
select * from geocode("...",streets_db)
The return should be a temporary table with rows ranked by likelihood
containing interpolated point location, the geometry of the line segment
section, and the component parts of the address itself in a normalized form
(av gets changed to ave).

Using php and mapserver, I have implemented a ragtag geocoder, but I think
that it would be a much cleaner and easier approach to do the address
normalization and the scoring completely within pl/sql.  Problem is, I have
no programming experience with pl/sql -- not to say that I'm not ready to
get my hands dirty.

Thanks,
David