The RPG-XML Suite developers at Krengel Tech have been at it again!

This month's idea came from thinking about another real-world use for web services — sending packages via shipping carriers like FedEx and UPS.

Often we have applications where we need to enter an address for a customer or supplier. However, what we have on file might be incomplete or might not be a correctly formatted address as far as shipping companies are concerned. Using this 'incorrect ' address can lead to shipping delays or even packages being lost. So we went ahead and fixed this problem for you!

Basically we wrote a service program around the "FedEx Ship Manager API/Direct Address Verification XML Transaction". Despite its long name, this is simply a web service provided by FedEx which you can use to verify an address. The web service returns a list of up to 10 addresses which match the address or partial address you supply. These addresses are in the correct format for FedEx (and for the United States Postal Service), including full 5+4 zip codes, standardized abbreviations (Rd, St, Apt etc.), capitalization etc. This service program is called FDXSV and has a single exported procedure — FDX_verifyAddress().

We also created a separate interactive green-screen program called FDXAVTR which you can use to call FDX_verifyAddress() from a command line. When you call it, this program displays an entry screen where you type in as much address information as you have, calls FDX_verifyAddress() and then displays a subfile of matching addresses. You can also integrate this program into your existing applications easily, passing an 'address' structure directly to it and returning a selected address. No longer will you worry about customer addresses being incorrect! This web service works for any US address, including Puerto Rico, to which FedEx delivers (doesn't include P.O. boxes).

Read the rest of the article by clicking here…