3. DESCRIPTION

PAGC takes an xbase file of addresses ( which shall be referred to here as the user attribute table ) and creates a point-type shapeset that positions these addresses with respect to an arc-type road network shapeset (which shall be referred to as the reference shapeset ). These two shapesets can then be combined with a GIS program (not provided) to produce a map that shows the locations of the addresses.

PAGC operates in two phases:

1. a build phase, which determines the schema of the reference attribute file, standardizes the road network data and indexes it;
2. a match phase, which determines the schema of the user attribute file and matches it against the reference attribute file to produce the point shape layer.

The reason for two phases is that a reference may be built once and matched many times.