Sun Jul 20 10:49:59 1997, faith@cs.unc.edu


WHAT:

The files contained herein are designed to convert U.S. Gazetteer data into
a format usable by the DICT server.  The data contains place names,
population and location information.  The Zip Code information is merged
with the place name data.

The original data is available from:
    ftp://ftp.census.gov:/pub/tiger/tms/gazetteer/places.zip
    ftp://ftp.census.gov:/pub/tiger/tms/gazetteer/mcds.zip
    ftp://ftp.census.gov:/pub/tiger/tms/gazetteer/counties.zip
    ftp://ftp.census.gov:/pub/tiger/tms/gazetteer/zips.zip

(Currently, the MCDS data is not used to build the database, because the
information it contains is not usually the information what people are
looking for and can be confusing (mostly county-specific divisions).  This
data can be included by modifying the Makefile.

The original U.S. Gazetteer Place and Zipcode Files are provided by the
U.S. Census Bureau and are in the Public Domain.

This package contains conversion software and a copy of the original data.
Please see the raw data for distribution terms for the raw and formatted
data.  The formatting _software_ is currently distributed under the GNU
General Public License.  If you need it use it under another license,
contact the author.


CONFIGURATION:

EXECUTION:

make          builds the libraries and executables
make db       formats the database
make install  installs the database (no executables are installed)

When you're done with the "make db" step, it should say
       52994 headwords
(or more, if you INCLUDE_STATE or use the MCDS data).

dictzip will be run if it is available.

A temporary file, called "tmp" is placed in the current working directory.

PROBLEMS:

If the problem is with the programs, you should contact me, Rik Faith
(faith@cs.unc.edu).  Patches or suggestions are always welcome, but my time
is limited and I might not reply to your email immediately.  If its many
years after 1997, faith@acm.org might be a better alternative address.

