[ic] USPS International shipping question

[Ed LaFrance]

At 07:13 PM 10/5/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Hello All,
>
>I'm running 4.9.7 and looking at getting EMS (Global Express) and GPM 
>(Global Priority Mail) setup.  I've pulled together a rates file from USPS 
>(converted the html file into a csv file).
>
>[snip]
>Exceed,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12
>0.5,15.50,16.75,20.00,17.00,19.00,17.00,23.00,17.00,19.00,22.75,28.50,22.25
>1.0,16.25,20.00,24.75,21.00,22.75,19.15,26.00,20.50,22.00,25.25,31.25,24.75
>2.0,17.00,23.70,28.75,25.00,26.05,21.65,29.00,24.00,26.00,28.25,35.50,28.00
>3.0,18.25,27.60,32.75,29.00,30.50,24.95,32.00,28.00,30.00,32.50,40.50,32.00
>4.0,19.25,31.10,35.75,33.00,34.90,28.15,35.00,32.00,35.00,36.50,44.75,36.00
>5.0,20.50,34.20,38.75,36.75,39.20,31.85,38.00,36.00,40.00,40.75,49.75,40.00
>6.0,22.75,36.40,41.75,40.05,43.45,34.95,41.20,40.20,44.65,45.00,54.50,44.00
>7.0,25.00,38.60,44.75,43.35,47.70,38.05,44.40,44.40,49.30,49.25,59.25,48.00
>8.0,27.25,40.80,47.75,46.65,51.95,41.15,47.60,48.60,53.95,53.50,64.00,52.00
>[/snip]
>
>I've also used their country listing to get the zones for each country to 
>correspond to the rates file.
>
>[snip]
>AF,-
>AL,6
>DZ,11
>AS,-
>AD,6
>AO,11
>AI,12
>AQ,-
>AG,-
>AR,12
>AM,7
>[/snip]
>
>I've setup a new shipping method based on the country:
>
>EMS     Global Express Mail     weight  0       0       e Nothing to 
>ship!              {'ui_ship_type' => "UPSI",'table' => "ems_rates",'zone' 
>=> "123",'at_least' => "16.85",'adder' => "3.00",'str_length' => "2",'geo' 
>=> "country",}
>EMS     Global Express 
>Mail     weight  0       70      u               {'PriceDivide' => "1",}
>EMS     Global Express Mail     weight  71      9999999 e Too heavy for 
>USPS    {'PriceDivide' => "1",}
>
>
>
>But, I'm missing something, as I'm getting an error:
>Zero cost returned for mode ems_rates, geo code PR
>
>Also, one thing I noticed in the structure file is not all of the fields 
>are showing. I should have Exceed, and 1 - 12, as there are 12 zones, but 
>1-5 are missing:
>
>  'ems_rates' => {
>                                            'NUMERIC' => {
>                                                           '7' => 1,
>                                                           '8' => 1,
>                                                           'Exceed' => 1,
>                                                           '9' => 1,
>                                                           '10' => 1,
>                                                           '11' => 1,
>                                                           '12' => 1,
>                                                           '6' => 1
>                                                         },
>                                            'DEFAULT_TYPE' => 'varchar(255)',
>                                            'USER' => 'root',
>                                            'Class' => 'GDBM',
>                                            'NO_ASCII_INDEX' => '1',
>                                            'included_from' => 
> 'dbconf/mysql/ems_rates.dbm',
>                                            'PASS' => 'xxxxxx',
>                                            'file' => 'ems_rates.csv',
>                                            'GUESS_NUMERIC' => '1',
>                                            'type' => 4,
>                                            'name' => 'ems_rates'
>                                          },

There could be (and probably are) several things amiss here, but one thing 
that jumps out at me is that the internal table lookup routines are not 
being told which column to consult in your ems_rates table. Take a look at 
the UPS zone file (I believe it is 407.csv) that is provided with the 
foundation demo and you will see that there is a named column for each 
shipping method and the appropriate column is called out in the 
shipping.asc entry for that method (prefixed by the 'u' method identifier 
in your case). This is one reason why you would be coming up with a goose 
egg for shipping. Another problem you could be facing is a broken rates 
table (possibly caused by embedded carriage returns). Finally, I seem to 
recall that the shipping routines use the first three characters of the geo 
code for purposes of locating the shipping zone and cost. I'm not sure if a 
two-character country code would be a problem or not, but a look inside the 
shipping subroutines might be worthwhile.

Good luck,

Ed L.


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