lat-lon-parser 1.1.1

simple parser for latitude-longitude strings

Code for parsing lat-long coordinates in “various” formats

Note: perhaps it would be better to integrate this with a more full featured lib like:

https://pypi.python.org/pypi/LatLon23

But that one does not seem to support parsing unknown formats at this point – and it’s GPL, and perhaps a littel more complex and structured than it needs to be.

Formats supported:

Decimal degrees (easy):

23.43
-45.21

Decimal Degrees with quadrant:

23.43 N
45.21 W

Or with spelled out:

23.43 North
45.21 West

(note that all of the cardinal directions are not case-sensitive)

Degrees, decimal minutes: (now it starts getting tricky!):

23° 25.800'
-45° 12.600'

or:

23 25.800'
-45 12.600'

or:

23° 25.8' N
45° 12.6' West

Degrees, Minutes, Seconds: (really fun!!!):

 23° 25' 48.0"
-45° 12' 36.0"

or:

 23d 25' 48.0"
-45d 12' 36.0"

or:

23° 25' 48.0" North
45° 12' 36.0" S

or – lots of other combinations!

For a more complete list, see the tests

Adding to the options:

This uses a pretty “stupid” algorithm – it assumes that all formats will be something like:

[-][space] degrees [separator] minutes [separator] seconds [separator] [N[orth]|S[outh|E[ast]|W[est]]

But that actually is pretty darn robust!

If you have other formats you want to be able to parse, please contribute tests! – And ideally a patch if the current code doesn’t work.