Re: UPS Shipping Returns $0.00 (Continued ... No Solution)

[mikeh@minivend.com]

Quoting Kyle Hayes (kyle540@quicknet.net):
> If any one of these things does not match, you won't get any shipping
> calculations.  The system is a little, er, fragile.

I have had a standing offer for 3 years for someone to come up with a
better shipping system -- no takers besides myself. 8-) I have had quite
a few suggestions that cover one specific situation to the exclusion
of others, but no framework that is general enough to replace what is there.

The problem with anything besides something which uses the standard
UPS shipping files is that then users have to condition data. The way
it is, you should be able to download each year's files from UPS as
they change. The zone file is used unchanged, which I did because it
would be common to use multiple files and reformatting each would be
a huge problem. The rest of the tables can be conditioned once and 
forgotten -- and even that is just

I think I am on solid ground when I say that something which uses
general database principles is less fragile in operation than something
which is all a special purpose routine. For instance, intuiting the
mode names from the raw file would leave you vulnerable to format
and name changes. My one special-purpose thing, the zone read, has
been fortunate in that UPS has kept the format (such as it is) fairly
consistent.

I am still looking for *concrete* suggestions.

-- 
Mike Heins                          http://www.minivend.com/  ___ 
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