From: "rpardee@..." <rpardee@...>
Date: 2005-10-08T10:11:50+09:00
Subject: Re: Code for title-casing (US) snail addresses?

Far out--I'm going to have to ponder that one--learn what inject()
does.

For now, here's what I've settled on:

@abbreviations  = %w(PO NE NW SE SW P.O. N.E. N.W. S.E. S.W. C/O P.O)
@suffixes       = %w(ST ND RD TH)
@prefixes       = %w(Mc O' D')
@dash_reg       = Regexp.new("([-/\"][A-Za-z])")

def prettify(address)
   ret = Array.new
   address.split(' ').each do |word|
      word.capitalize! unless (@abbreviations.include?(word) or
word[0..0] =~ /[0-9#]/ )
      word[2..2] = word[2..2].upcase if @prefixes.include?(word[0..1])
      word[-2, 2] = word[-2, 2].downcase if
@suffixes.include?(word[-2,2])
      ret << word
   end
   ret = ret.join(' ')
   # puts ret
   if ret =~ @dash_reg then ret.gsub(@dash_reg, $1.upcase) else ret end
end

This seems to handle both apartment numbers, and hyphenated street
names:

prettify("1234 SLEATER-KINNEY RD #A5")