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Handling missing altnames  XML
Forum Index -> Discussion of GeoNames Toponyms
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dale



Joined: 04/03/2009 02:43:38
Messages: 3
Location: United States
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I'm trying to figure out the right strategy for handling the following situation. Consider this example:

Pa`auilo is a populated place in administrative region Hawaii, country US.

geonames table has:
name = Pa`auilo
asciiname = Pa'auilo
altnames = NULL

All find and dandy.

But I'm getting the name from my application (provided by the user) as 'Paauilo'. Since it's hard to imagine how I could manufacture the proper spelling on the fly, I'm thinking Paauilo should be added as an altname.

But I'm a novice at this stuff, so my question is what's the accepted solution in such cases.

BTW, this pattern is pretty common in Hawaii. The non-native locals are very prone to drop the back-quote.
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
Messages: 4412
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You are right it makes sense to add those as alternate names. I will do it.

Marc

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dale



Joined: 04/03/2009 02:43:38
Messages: 3
Location: United States
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Thanks, Marc. If there's some way I can help, just point me to how and where. I'm really am impressed with what you've done at Geonames.org.
marc



Joined: 08/12/2005 07:39:47
Messages: 4412
Offline

I have added two alternate names for those places. One with language code 'haw' and the reverse apostrophe and the other without language code and the reverse apostrophe removed. For the latter I have also converted the "Ā" into "A".

http://www.geonames.org/search.html?q=Paauilo

Marc

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dale



Joined: 04/03/2009 02:43:38
Messages: 3
Location: United States
Offline

Thanks. That works
 
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