Validating uk postcodes

Do not use code, components or techniques unless you are satisfied that they will work correctly in your applications.

This isn’t usually too taxing, especially with browsers providing auto-complete these days, but one quirk of many of these pages that I find disproportionately irritating is the appalling and inconsistent rules they apply to postcodes.

The official postcode specification details the structure of the postcode, and there is also a list of BFPO numbers from In this article, we offer a Javascript function that does just that.

The map below shows the areas defined by the postcode area, postcode district, postcode sector and unit postcode for example postcode WC2B 4AB: The approach for parsing a postcode varies in complexity depending on two things: If you are familiar with other languages, and would like to contribute a method in another language, we would love to hear from you on Twitter or by email.

In this article, we offer a PHP function that does just that.[0-9])(\s*)([0-9]" alpha5 ")$","i")); (new Reg Exp ("^(" alpha1 "[0-9]" alpha3 ")(\s*)([0-9]" alpha5 ")$","i")); (new Reg Exp ("^(" alpha1 "" alpha2 "" "?

It's easy enough to add a filter to remove the space, but I'm a little worried that when (and if) it gets fixed, will the fixed version Zend_Validate_Post Code then fail to validate postcodes without the space?

In theory it should as the space is part of the spec.(But even that wouldn't be a perfect check, as the PAF is never completely up to date, postcodes are constantly being added, and existing premises are occasionally re-coded.

Remember, postcode validation function below only checks that the code is in the correct format.