The Data Model Resource Book, Volume 3: Universal Patterns for Data Modeling

Silverston c07.tex V2 - 11/20/2008 5:44pm Page 399

Other Common Contact Mechanism Data 399

It may be overkill for many enterprises that need a much for more sim-

ple address structure. This pattern would be an added complication to

them. This pattern has a level of complexity and flexibility that can be

confusing, and this can lead to poor implementations that in turn lead

to data quality issues. This pattern needs to be explained in detail before

use.

The pattern does not accommodate maintaining various presentation

formats for different countries. Although the pattern accommodates a

very flexible way to maintain address parts, many additional entities,

attributes, and relationships are needed to expand this pattern to also

maintain valid postal address presentation formats.

Synopsis

In this section we examined a major issue with postal addresses across the

world, that is, the problem that different jurisdictions require a great variety

of different parts in the address. What concerns us is being able to capture

all of the different constituent parts of the address. This pattern creates a

flexible structure to suit various countries regardless of the different address

parts they use.

The nuts and bolts of this pattern lie in the POSTAL ADDRESS PART

entity. A POSTAL ADDRESS PART is a single atomic piece of postal address

information. POSTAL ADDRESS PART is the confluence of four pieces of

information: