Parsing latitude and longitude with Ruby

Question

I need to parse some user submitted strings containing latitudes and longitudes, under Ruby.

The result should be given in a double

Example:

08º 04' 49'' 09º 13' 12''

Result:

8.080278 9.22

I've looked to both Geokit and GeoRuby but haven't found a solution. Any hint?

Answer 1

"08° 04' 49'' 09° 13' 12''".gsub(/(\d+)° (\d+)' (\d+)''/) do
  $1.to_f + $2.to_f/60 + $3.to_f/3600
end
#=> "8.08027777777778 9.22"

Edit: or to get the result as an array of floats:

"08° 04' 49'' 09° 13' 12''".scan(/(\d+)° (\d+)' (\d+)''/).map do |d,m,s|
  d.to_f + m.to_f/60 + s.to_f/3600
end
#=> [8.08027777777778, 9.22]

Answer 2

How about using a regular expression? Eg:

def latlong(dms_pair)
  match = dms_pair.match(/(\d\d)º (\d\d)' (\d\d)'' (\d\d)º (\d\d)' (\d\d)''/)
  latitude = match[1].to_f + match[2].to_f / 60 + match[3].to_f / 3600
  longitude = match[4].to_f + match[5].to_f / 60 + match[6].to_f / 3600
  {:latitude=>latitude, :longitude=>longitude}
end

Here's a more complex version that copes with negative coordinates:

def dms_to_degrees(d, m, s)
  degrees = d
  fractional = m / 60 + s / 3600
  if d > 0
    degrees + fractional
  else
    degrees - fractional
  end
end

def latlong(dms_pair)
  match = dms_pair.match(/(-?\d+)º (\d+)' (\d+)'' (-?\d+)º (\d+)' (\d+)''/)

  latitude = dms_to_degrees(*match[1..3].map {|x| x.to_f})
  longitude = dms_to_degrees(*match[4..6].map {|x| x.to_f})

  {:latitude=>latitude, :longitude=>longitude}
end