Reference guide - Melissa Data

Reference GuideIntroductionIntroductionWelcome to the Melissa Data Global Address Verification Web Service. Verify andstandardize mailing addresses from across the world with the flexibility and accuracydelivered by Melissa Data products.The Global Address Verification Web Service:• Supports 240 countries in the world.• Will detail both the accuracy of a given address and the possible accuracy of a givencountry.• Still supports the expected accuracy of Melissa Data’s Address Check Web Service forthe United States and Canada.• Supports multiple protocols to access the Web Service, including JSON, XML,REST, XFORMS, and SOAP.Character ReplacementsUsing the REST service may require that you encode certain characters using the properURL entities before adding them to a URL. Characters like spaces, slashes, ampersands,and others must be replaced by special codes, which usually consist of a percent signfollowed by a two-digit hexadecimal number.The following table shows the replacements for the most common characters.Character URL Encoded Character URL EncodedSpace %20 or + ; %3B* %2A < %3C# %23 = %3D& %26 > %3E% %25 ? %3F$ %28 @ %40+ %2B [ %5B1