The AddressFormatter class

• 4 minutes to read

The AddressFormatter class to help you work with the complexities of address formats. It provides the following functions to format addresses:

FormatContact
FormatPerson
FormatQuote

Reading the FormattedAddress data structure is very straightforward. Simply loop over the FormattedAddress lines and print out each IFormattedField from FormattedFields.

The following code example demonstrates using AddressFormatter to get a formatted representation of a contact's address, then loops over each line and prints out each address field.

using SuperOffice;
using SuperOffice.CRM.Entities;
using SuperOffice.CRM.Globalization;
using SuperOffice.CRM.Security;

using(SoSession session = SoSession.Authenticate("SAL0", ""))
{
  // get company ID 4
  Contact company = Contact.GetFromIdxContactId(4);

  // format the address of the contact to the format of the
  // country that the contact belongs to

  var formattedAddress = AddressFormatter.FormatContact(company);

  foreach (FormattedFields fs in formattedAddress)
  {
    foreach (IFormattedField f in fs)
    {
      Console.WriteLine(f.Name + " " + f.Value);
    }

    Console.WriteLine();
  }
}

// outputs
//---------
//StreetAddress1: A-gata 23
//StreetZipcode: 0123
//StreetCity: OSLO

Now, look at a ContactRow. Because it only contains properties from the contact table, it does not contain an Address property. To get a FormattedAddress from a ContactRow, the AddressFormatter expects an AddressRow as well.

using SuperOffice.CRM.Globalization;
using SuperOffice.CRM.Security;
using SuperOffice.CRM.Rows;
using SuperOffice;
using(SoSession session = SoSession.Authenticate("SAL0", ""))
{
  // retrieve the contact row no 4

  ContactRow conRow = ContactRow.GetFromIdxContactId(4);
  // get the postal address of the contact row no 4

  AddressRow postalAddress = AddressRow.GetFromIdxOwnerIdAtypeIdx(4, SuperOffice.Data.AddressType.ContactPostalAddress);
  // get the street address of the contact row no 4

  AddressRow streetAddress = AddressRow.GetFromIdxOwnerIdAtypeIdx(4, SuperOffice.Data.AddressType.ContactStreetAddress);
  // format the address according to the country that the contact belongs to

  FormattedAddress formattedAddress = AddressFormatter.FormatContact(conRow, postalAddress, streetAddress);
}

You can see we have done the same thing using only rows. The FormatContact method converts the postal and street address to the format of the country that the contact belongs to. The example uses the AddressRow.GetFromIdxOwnerIdAtypeIdx method to get the desired contact address type.

Pre-defined address field names for person and contact:

Person address types	Contact address types	Quote address types
Address1	PostalAddress1	BillingAddress1
Address2	PostalAddress2	BillingAddress2
Address3	PostalAddress3	BillingAddress3
City	PostalCity	BillingCity
County	PostalCounty	BillingCounty
State	PostalState	BillingState
Zipcode	PostalZipcode	BillingZipcode
	StreetAddress1	ShippingAddress1
	StreetAddress2	ShippingAddress2
	StreetAddress3	ShippingAddress3
	StreetCity	ShippingCity
	StreetCounty	ShippingCounty
	StreetState	ShippingState
	StreetZipcode	ShippingZipcode

Writing address information back to this data structure is not useful. There is no way to persist changes to a FormattedAddress back to the database. Therefore, when writing code inside NetServer core use the Contact and Person entity types to persist address changes. Both entity types expose an Address property with relevant properties for dealing with respective address formats.

// Example Person Address
Person person = Person.GetFromIdxPersonId(3);
person.Address.Address1 = "A-gata 23";
person.Address.City     = "OSLO";
person.Address.Zipcode  = "0123";
person.Save();
// Example Contact Address
Contact contact = Contact.GetFromIdxContactId(3);
contact.PostalAddress.Address1 = "";
contact.PostalAddress.Address2 = "";
contact.PostalAddress.Address3 = "";
contact.PostalAddress.City     = "";
contact.PostalAddress.County   = "";
contact.PostalAddress.Zipcode  = "";
//----------------------------------
contact.StreetAddress.Address1 = "";
contact.StreetAddress.Address2 = "";
contact.StreetAddress.Address3 = "";
contact.StreetAddress.City     = "";
contact.StreetAddress.County   = "";
contact.StreetAddress.Zipcode  = "";
contact.Save();

Working with address information in SuperOffice CRM had never been easier. Hopefully, now you understand the FormattedAddress structure, its' madness, and know better how to deal with it in future projects.