Improved Automated Database Downloading

You may have read our Knowledge Base article Automating Reference Data Downloads, which describes the process of automating the monthly nCode Address Reference Database download process. You can create an unattended download job that let’s you look for reference database updates and download them automatically using the batch scheduling tool of your choice.

This mechanism uses a special download URL and an individual download token that any nCode customer can request:

https://www.novamg.com/downloads/unattended.aspx?voucher=######

The “######” is your individual download token. With this URL you can download the nCode reference database file of your choice without any user interaction.

By changing the query string in your personalized download URL, you can get information about the current database file. For example you can change voucher to date to get a small text file containing the last modified date of the database file. Other options include version and size which get you small text files with the current version number and file size measured in kilobytes, respectively. You can also use info, which downloads a text file containing all of the available information for the database file.

Improved Information
Any time a file is transfered over the Internet, there is always the risk that the file may become corrupted in transit. In order to ensure that the file you receive is the file that was sent to you, it’s good to be able to measure the source and target files using an objective metric. One commonly used technique for ensuring that a file has not been corrupted or tampered with is to compare MD5 hash values for the source and destination copies of a file.

Now the nCode automated download mechanism supports retrieval of the MD5 hash value of the current address reference database file. Simply use a URL in this form:

https://www.novamg.com/downloads/unattended.aspx?md5=######

Note the query string value: md5. You can calculate the MD5 hash value of your downloaded file and compare it to the value retrieved from our website to make sure your file was not corrupted in transit.

Find Out More
If you’d like to know more about our automated file download mechanism, you can download the complete guide from your My Downloads page, or contact us at support@novamg.com.

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