Scripts for storing postcode data in an elastic search index and making it searchable via an ID derivable from the postcode. This ID is a postcode with all chars uppercase and no spaces. Only the longitude, and latitude is stored for 17million+ Uk postcodes.
The scripts have been tested on python3, and elastic search 5+

.:How To:.

1. extract ukpostcodes.zip so that ukpostcodes.csv is in data. ( see https://www.freemaptools.com/download-uk-postcode-lat-lng.htm
 for up to date data)

2. run load_data.py

WARNINGS: 

1.This will delete any index called postcodes.

2.Assumes ES is on local machine, alter source code if this is not the case

3. When the script has done, run testQuery.py. Should output data for some example postcodes. (Requires requests)

Optional: Import postcodes_es_query into your server and begin serving requests based on postcode input!



.:Project Goals:.
1. Constrained to using ElasticSearch, I need a fast way of giving a postcode in a query, and getting back the longitude, and lattitude of that query. This is all I need for my use case in the overarching project.[Done]
2. Extra: Out of intererst I want to see if I can use known information about postcodes to store the data in such a way which increases querying speed than the naive method(1).
    e.g: Give some inward code, only look at relevant postcodes. I think the lookup time is not related to size of index away.

.:Todo:.
[X] Create out postcodes Index. (Make sure to not have text search features on anything)
[X] Stream postcodes in from the CSV, this is a large file, we will use the bulk API to store the information we need.
    - Probably store the postcode id as uppercase with no space
[X] Make query function, then module it up for project use!

Dependencies:
uk-postcode-utils: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/uk-postcode-utils (included)
elasticsearch
request

Data Source:
https://www.freemaptools.com/download-uk-postcode-lat-lng.htm

Data Information:
+ There are roughly of 18 million postcodes (rounding up)!