ttkr1 - 5:56 pm on Jul 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

but you can use the center points of the zipcodes you intend to use and define how far out you want to go from the center point. If it is those centerpoints you need, they come prepackaged with the Geo::PostalCode perl modules: [search.cpan.org...]

If you don't use perl, you can get just the text file with the data here:
[tjmather.com...] (url can change when postal codes are updated)

An easier option would be to simply have a postal code associated with each location and make it a simple "keyword"-based search (if user select "12111," show them results in "12111" only). However, if you add geospatial search, zipcode boundaries won't matter and it can give you the "true" closest locations. Keeping the geospatial search allows for building in the town-based searches you want to add later...towns will just have lat/longs associated with them and the search would happen the exact same way.

If you want some help building this, ping me with details.