Fedex tracking number

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Omid

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Nov 1, 2007, 3:59:40 PM11/1/07

to Google-Desktop-Plug-in: PackageTracker

Hi Brennan,

I think you have done a nice job creating this mashup service.
I have looked online for information regarding what formats different
tracking numbers have, and I have found information about FedEx 12 and
15 digit tracking numbers, but nothing about the 14 digit tracking
number.
How do you validate the 14 digit Fedex number (I think you added
support for this in version 0.9.6)?

I would very much appreciate if you could give me some help or perhaps
pointers to how I can calculate the checksum for the 14 digit Fedex
number.

Thanks
/Omid

Brennan Folmer

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Nov 1, 2007, 10:47:01 PM11/1/07

to Google-Desktop-Plu...@googlegroups.com, n_o_s...@hotmail.com

Hi Omid -

The support for the 14-digit tracking number was added because a user of the Package Tracker wrote to me and said they had a 14-digit number. If I remember correctly, the 'official' Fedex documentation only included information about the 12- and 15-digit tracking numbers, but when I made a request to the web service with the 14-digit number, sure enough it worked. Same thing with the 10-digit numbers (which had been identified as only DHL until version 1.0.4). I don't know why Fedex doesn't publish that information... or at least I couldn't find it.

Basically, the validation for the 14-digit Fedex numbers is very simple. If the entry (after spaces and non-alpha-numeric characters are removed) consists of exactly 14 numbers, it is assumed to be Fedex. A call is made to that web service, and the result is displayed.