Network Working Group M. Thomson
Request for Comments: 5139 J. Winterbottom
Updates: 4119 Andrew
Category: Standards Track February 2008
Revised Civic Location Format for
Presence Information Data Format Location Object (PIDF-LO)
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
This document defines an XML format for the representation of civic
location. This format is designed for use with Presence Information
Data Format Location Object (PIDF-LO) documents and replaces the
civic location format in RFC 4119. The format is based on the civic
address definition in PIDF-LO, but adds several new elements based on
the civic types defined for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
(DHCP), and adds a hierarchy to address complex road identity
schemes. The format also includes support for the xml:lang language
tag and restricts the types of elements where appropriate.
Thomson & Winterbottom Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 5139 Revised Civic LO February 2008
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Changes from PIDF-LO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. Additional Civic Address Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.2. New Thoroughfare Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2.1. Street Numbering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.2. Directionals and Other Qualifiers . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Country Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.4. A1 Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.5. Languages and Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.5.1. Converting from the DHCP Format . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.5.2. Combining Multiple Elements Based on Language
Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.6. Whitespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Civic Address Schema . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7.1. URN sub-namespace registration for
'urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:pidf:geopriv10:civicAddr' . . . . 10
7.2. XML Schema Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7.3. CAtype Registry Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Thomson & Winterbottom Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 5139 Revised Civic LO February 2008
1. Introduction
Since the publication of the original PIDF-LO civic specification, in
[RFC4119], it has been found that the specification is lacking a
number of additional parameters that can be used to more precisely
specify a civic location. These additional parameters have been
largely captured in [RFC4776].
This document revises the GEOPRIV civic form to include the
additional civic parameters captured in [RFC4776]. The document also
introduces a hierarchical structure for thoroughfare (road)
identification, which is employed in some countries. New elements
are defined to allow for even more precision in specifying a civic
location.
2. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
The term "thoroughfare" is used in this document to describe a road
or part of a road or other access route along which a final point is
identified. This is consistent with the definition used in
[UPU-S42].
3. Changes from PIDF-LO
3.1. Additional Civic Address Types
[RFC4776] provides a full set of parameters that may be used to
describe a civic location. Specifically, [RFC4776] lists several
civic address types (CAtypes) that require support in the formal
PIDF-LO definition that are not in [RFC4119].
These changes include new elements that are required to support more
complex structures for naming street addresses. This is described in
more detail in Section 3.2.
Thomson & Winterbottom Standards Track [Page 3]
RFC 5139 Revised Civic LO February 2008
+-----------+--------+-------------------------------+--------------+
| New Field | CAtype | Description | Example |
+-----------+--------+-------------------------------+--------------+
| BLD | 25 | Building (structure) | Hope Theatre |
| | | | |
| UNIT | 26 | Unit (apartment, suite) | 12a |
| | | | |
| ROOM | 28 | Room | 450F |
| | | | |
| PLC | 29 | Place-type | office |
| | | | |
| PCN | 30 | Postal community name | Leonia |
| | | | |
| POBOX | 31 | Post office box (P.O. box) | U40 |
| | | | |
| ADDCODE | 32 | Additional Code | 13203000003 |
| | | | |
| SEAT | 33 | Seat (desk, cubicle, | WS 181 |
| | | workstation) | |
| | | | |
| RD | 34 | Primary road or street | Broadway |
| | | | |
| RDSEC | 35 | Road section | 14 |
| | | | |
| RDBR | 36 | Road branch | Lane 7 |
| | | | |
| RDSUBBR | 37 | Road sub-branch | Alley 8 |
| | | | |
| PRM | 38 | Road pre-modifier | Old |
| | | | |
| POM | 39 | Road post-modifier | Extended |
+-----------+--------+-------------------------------+--------------+
Table 1: New Civic PIDF-LO Types
A complete description of these types is included in [RFC4776].
3.2. New Thoroughfare Elements
In some countries, a thoroughfare can be broken up into sections, and
it is not uncommon for street numbers to be repeated between
sections. A road section identifier is required to ensure that an
address is unique. For example, "West Alice Parade" in the figure
below has 5 sections, each numbered from 1; unless the section is
specified, "7 West Alice Parade" could exist in 5 different places.
The "RDSEC" element is used to specify the section.
Thomson & Winterbottom Standards Track [Page 4]
RFC 5139 Revised Civic LO February 2008
Minor streets can share the same name, so that they can only be
distinguished by the major thoroughfare with which they intersect.
For example, both "West Alice Parade, Section 3" and "Bob Street"
could both be intersected by a "Carol Lane". The "RDBR" element is
used to specify a road branch where the name of the branch does not
uniquely identify the road. Road branches MAY also be used where a
major thoroughfare is split into sections.
Similar to the way that a road branch is associated with a road, a
road sub-branch is associated with a road branch. The "RDSUBBR"
element is used to identify road sub-branches.
The "A6" element is retained for use in those countries that require
this level of detail. Where "A6" was previously used for street
names in [RFC4119], it MUST NOT be used; the "RD" element MUST be
used for thoroughfare data.
The following figure shows a fictional arrangement of roads where
these new thoroughfare elements are applicable.
| ||
| ---------------||
| Carol La. Carol La. || Bob
| || St.
| West Alice Pde. ||
==========/=================/===============/==========||===========
Sec.1 Sec.2 Sec.3 | Sec.4 || Sec.5
| ||
----------| Carol ||
Alley 2 | La. ||
| ||
3.2.1. Street Numbering
The introduction of new thoroughfare elements affects the
interpretation of several aspects of more specific civic address
data. In particular, street numbering (the "HNO" element) applies to
the most specific road element specified, that is, the first
specified element from "RDSUBBR", "RDBR", "RDSEC", or "RD".
3.2.2. Directionals and Other Qualifiers
The "PRM", "POM", "PRD", "POD", and "STS" elements always apply to
the value of the "RD" element only. If road branches or sub-branches
require street suffixes or qualifiers, they MUST be included in the
"RDBR" or "RDSUBBR" element text.
Thomson & Winterbottom Standards Track [Page 5]
RFC 5139 Revised Civic LO February 2008
3.3. Country Element
The "country" element differs from that defined in [RFC4119] in that
it now restricts the value space of the element to two uppercase
characters, which correspond to the alpha-2 codes in [ISO.3166-1].
3.4. A1 Element
The "A1" element is used for the top-level subdivision within a
country. In the absence of a country-specific guide on how to use
the A-series of elements, the second part of the ISO 3166-2 code
[ISO.3166-2] for a country subdivision SHOULD be used. The ISO
3166-2 code is formed of a country code and hyphen plus a code of
one, two, or three characters or numerals. For the "A1" element, the
leading country code and hyphen are omitted and only the subdivision
code is included.
For example, the codes for Canada include CA-BC, CA-ON, CA-QC;
Luxembourg has just three single-character codes, LU-D, LU-G, and
LU-L; Australia uses both two- and three-character codes, AU-ACT,
AU-NSW, AU-NT; and France uses numerical codes for mainland France
and letters for territories, FR-75, FR-NC. This results in the
following fragments:
See RFC5139.
END 7.2. XML Schema Registration This section registers an XML schema as per the procedures in [RFC3688]. URI: urn:ietf:params:xml:schema:pidf:geopriv10:civicAddr Registrant Contact: IETF, GEOPRIV working group (geopriv@ietf.org), Martin Thomson (martin.thomson@andrew.com). The XML for this schema can be found as the entirety of Section 4 of this document. 7.3. CAtype Registry Update This document updates the civic address type registry established by [RFC4776]. The "PIDF" column of the CAtypes table has been updated to include the types shown in the first column of Table 1. Thomson & Winterbottom Standards Track [Page 11] RFC 5139 Revised Civic LO February 2008 8. References 8.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [W3C.REC-xmlschema-2-20041028] Biron, P. and A. Malhotra, "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes Second Edition", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-xmlschema-2-20041028, October 2004,