US State vs US Postal Code

[Nelluk]

class USStateField(CharField):
    description = _("U.S. state (two uppercase letters)")

class USPostalCodeField(CharField):
    description = ("U.S. postal code (two uppercase letters)")
    kwargs['maxlength'] = 2

Shouldn't the postal code field contain digits? Seems like it was accidentally copied from the State field.

[charettes]

Reading from the doc string of USPostalCodeField it seems that it represents the USPS code which is also a two uppercase letters format to represent states.

Note that a the USCG and USPS of state might differ. i.e. The USCG code of California is CF while it's USPS code is CA.

[bryanveloso]

I think the issue here is that "Postal Code" and "ZIP code" are interchangeable in the American lexicon, hence the concern brought forth by the OP. Something USPostalServiceCodeField would probably be less confusing.

[mxsasha]

I can see your concern, but I don't think it's serious enough for everyone to rename references to this field. Perhaps you could submit a pull request with a clarified description, or something along those lines?

[ubernostrum]

The "postal code" field, historically, has its name because it accepts all codes the US Postal Service recognizes as "states", even though many of those codes represent places which are not US states (in fact some represent sovereign nations for which the US provides postal services).

Any attempt at a better name must avoid the politically-sensitive issue of referring to those as "states".

[tobiasmcnulty]

Part of the confusion may be that there is no model field for US zip codes, so people see see the USPostalCodeField and assume it's a zip code. Is there a reason such a model field doesn't exist?

[jezdez]

Thanks for the suggestion @tobiasmcnulty, I hope 4d4c5a2 suffices to close this issue for good.

[tobiasmcnulty]

@jezdez Does for me; thanks so much!