city-ch-autocomplete 0.3

A Django app to query the Swiss Post API for postcodes and localities.

city-ch-autocomplete is a Django helper app to add an autocomplete widget in an address form that searches postal codes and locality names through the post.ch API.

It depends on Bootstrap 5 to produce the autocomplete widget.

Quick start

1. Add “city_ch_autocomplete” to your INSTALLED_APPS setting like this:

   INSTALLED_APPS = [
       ...,
       "city_ch_autocomplete",
   ]

2. Include city_ch_autocomplete urls to your urlpatterns:

   urlpatterns = [
       ...,
       path("", include("city_ch_autocomplete.urls")),
       ...,
   ]

2. Get an API access from the Swiss Post (starting from https://developer.apis.post.ch/ui/home). Note the process can take some time. Then add the POST_API_USER and POST_API_PASSWORD settings to your project.

   Optionally you can get the data from a CSV and put it in a database table. Read below for more details.

3. In the target form(s) of your project, add the CityChMixin to your form inheritance and a CityChField as a form field:

   from city_ch_autocomplete.forms import CityChField, CityChMixin
   
   class YourForm(CityChMixin, forms.ModelForm):
       class Meta:
           fields = [..., '<my_postcode_model_field>', '<my_city_model_field>', ...]
       city_auto = CityChField(...)
       postal_code_model_field = '<my_postcode_model_field>'
       city_model_field = '<my_city_model_field>'

   Don’t forget to include {{ form.media }} in the templates where you are using the form.

Searching from the database

If for some reason, you would prefer searching postcodes/names from a database table instead from the Swiss Post API, you can search on the Net for a CSV file containing the information. The PLZdb.import_from_csv(csv_path) class method allows for importing such data. Then set the POST_API_USER setting to None and the view will search from the database instead.