Scott,

Two questions:

1. Do your addresses contain just the street number, name, city and province/state, or do they also contain postal and/or zip codes?

2. How fine does your analysis have to be?

I can only talk about Canadian postal codes but, regarding them, Google Earth may provide a good alternative IF you only need to group by the first three characters of the postal code (i.e., the equivalent of a metropolitan sorting area). If you need to be as exact as a city block, then I'm not aware of any free alternative.

Ajay, can you provide some sample code (whether it be SAS or VBA) to get the file automagically from Google Earth?

Art -------- On Sun, 4 Jan 2009 14:36:01 -0600, Raynaud, Scott <Scott.Raynaud@TARGETBASE.COM> wrote:

>Yes, I Googled this topic before emailing. The problem with the >services I found was I was not sure about the quality, they only do US, >or there is no way to process a batch job. Since I have 200k records, >doing them one-by-one is not an option. I found one site that allows >batch processing (stevemorse.org), but one is limited to about 100-150 >records at a time. Anyway, GIS is not my forte, so it would be nice to >know what tools are available (for free). > >-----Original Message----- >From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of >Daniel Nordlund >Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 2:22 PM >To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >Subject: Re: geocoding > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On >> Behalf Of Scott Raynaud >> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 11:39 AM >> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU >> Subject: geocoding >> >> I'm running SAS 9.1.3. I don't have SAS/GIS. I have some >> addresses (US and >> Canada) that I wish to convert to lat/longs. Anybody have >> any ideas on how >> I can accomplish this with out paying boat loads of money >> (read free)? When >> I searched the archives I saw a post on a software called >> GRASS, but the >> documentation was pretty sparse. I couldn't easily figure out how to >> perform the conversion. > >How many addresses constitute "some"? If you google "free geocoding" >you >will find lots of options on the web, both individual and bulk >geocoding. > >Dan > >Daniel Nordlund >Bothell, WA USA >[ALERT] -- Access Manager: This email is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. Dissemination, distribution or copying of this e-mail or the information herein by anyone other than the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify us by calling our North American Help Desk at (972)506-3939. > >Targetbase Messaging Services provided by DMSP >