Supply formats

CSV and GeoPackage

GeoPackage is an open, standard, platform-independent, portable, self-describing, compact format for transferring geospatial information. For more information on this format, please see the Getting started with GeoPackage guide, available here.

The following tables give a comparison between the CSV attributes and the GeoPackage attribution.

CSV attribution and format

MnemonicDescriptionData typeSize

PC

Postcode

A8

8

PQ

Postitional_quality_indicator

I2

1

PR

PO_Box_indicator

A1

1

TP

Total_number_of_delivery_points

I3

*

DQ

Delivery_points_used_to_create_the_CPLC

I3

*

RP

Domestic_delivery_points

I3

*

BP

Non_domestic_delivery_points

I3

*

PD

PO_Box_delivery_points

I3

*

MP

Matched_address_premises

I3

*

UM

Unmatched_delivery_points

I3

*

EA

Eastings

I6

*

NO

Northings

I7

*

CY

Country_code

A9

9

RH

NHS_regional_HA_code

A9

9

LH

NHS_HA_code

A9

9

CC

Admin_county_code

A9

9

DC

Admin_district_code

A9

9

WC

Admin_ward_code

A9

9

LS

Postcode_type

A1

1

GeoPackage attribution and format

DescriptionData typeSize

postcode

TEXT

8

positional_quality_indicator

TINYINT

1

po_box_indicator

TEXT

1

total_number_of_delivery_points

TINYINT

*

delivery_points_used_to_create_the_cplc

TINYINT

*

domestic_delivery_points

TINYINT

*

non_domestic_delivery_points

TINYINT

*

po_box_delivery_points

TINYINT

*

matched_address_premises

TINYINT

*

unmatched_delivery_points

TINYINT

*

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

country_code

TEXT

9

nhs_regional_ha_code

TEXT

9

nhs_ha_code

TEXT

9

admin_county_code

TEXT

9

admin_district_code

TEXT

9

admin_ward_code

TEXT

9

postcode_type

TEXT

1

CSV format

  • Those fields containing text (A) will be enclosed by double quotes which have not been included in the sizes listed in the table above. An asterisk (*) denotes variable length.

  • Fields with null data will appear as "" for text and 0 for numeric.

  • Each record will be terminated with a carriage return character (ASCII 13) and a line feed character (ASCII 10).

Example of a Code-Point CSV record: "SO160AS",10,"N",1,1,0,1,0,1,0,437292,115542,"E92000001","E19000002","E18000009","E10000014","E07000093","E05012936","L"

GeoPackage format

Note that there are no eastings or northings in GeoPackage; the geometry is already created in the GeoPackage container and is not listed as data but will be seen as a column in a database (PostGIS) called geom with a coordinate reference system of British National Grid EPSG: 27700 for GB postcodes.

Also supplied with the GeoPackage is the Code-Point data for Northern Ireland. This is already projected in Irish Grid EPSG: 29902 so will display in the correct position for this region.

Fields with a null value will appear as [Null] for text (PostGIS) or as an empty field in a GIS. A null numeric value will appear as 0 in both a database and an attribute table in a GIS. Example of a GeoPackage record taken from the Information tool in QGIS:

The FeatureID (FID) is autogenerated by a GIS when the GeoPackage is loaded into it; it is not present in the GeoPackage.

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