BankruptcyWatch Coding Challenge

Goal

The BankruptcyWatch Coding Challenge is designed to help us locate experienced developers who are proficient in the Python language and in developing at Github and who are able to write clean, correct, and reliable code.

The Challenge

The directory input contains three files each containing a list of US names and addresses:

The file formats are not documented, but you can deduce the formats by examing their contents. The challenge is to write a python script challenge.py, desgined to be run from the command line, that accepts a list of pathnames of files in any of the above formats, parses them, and writes a JSON-encoded list of the combined addresses to standard output, sorted by ZIP code in ascending order. You can assume that the the format of each file corresponds to its extension, as illustrated by the above examples. Your submission should consist of a single file, without any supporting documents. The output should be a pretty-printed JSON array of JSON objects, each having 5 or 6 properties, serialized in the given order:

name: The person's full name, if present, consisting of a list of one or more given names followed by the family name
organization: The company or organization name, if present
street: The street address, often just a house number followed by a direction indicator and a street name
city: The city name
county: The county name, if present
state: The US state name or abbreviation
zip: The ZIP code or ZIP+4, in the format 00000 or 00000-0000

A personal name or organization name will always be present, but not both.

Here is a sample output:

[
  {
    "name": "Hilda Flores",
    "street": "1509 Alberbrook Pl",
    "city": "Garland",
    "county": "DALLAS",
    "state": "TX",
    "zip": "75040"
  },
  {
    "organization": "Central Trading Company Ltd.",
    "street": "1501 North Division Street",
    "city": "Plainfield",
    "state": "Illinois",
    "zip": "60544-3890"
  }
]

The script should

Be well-organized and easy to understand
Use only standard Python libraries
Be compatible with Python 3.11
Conform to PEP 8
Provide a --help option
Check for errors in the argument list
Check the input files to make sure they conform to the formats expemplified by the sample files
Output a list of addresses only if no errors were discovered in the above two steps
Write any error messages to stderr
Exit with status 0 or 1 to indicate success or failure

Warning

Study the data carefully: it's not as easy as it looks.

Timing

You should submit your solution within 24 hours of beginning to work on the challenge.

Submitting Your Solution

To Submit your solution, fork this repository and submit a pull request. It should consist of a single commit with a concise commit message.

ss3468/CodingChallenge

BankruptcyWatch Coding Challenge

Goal

The Challenge

Timing

Submitting Your Solution