Coordinate Parser

Intelligent geographical coordinate parser in C++ as a header-only implementation

Flexible algorithm to parse strings containing various latitude/longitude formats. This is a C++ implementation of the javascript version coordinate-parser.

Usage

#include "coordinateparser.hpp"

std::string error;
double latitude, longitude = 0;

// parse coordinate string
std::string str = "40.4183318° N 74.6411133° W"

bool valid = CoordinateParser::parse(str, latitude, longitude, error);

if (valid)
    std::cout << str << ": " << latitude <<  ", " << longitude << std::endl;   // 40.41833, -74.64111 ✓
else
    std::cout << str << ": parsing failed, " << error << std::endl;

Supported formats

• 40.123, -74.123
• 40.123° N 74.123° W
• 40° 7´ 22.8" N 74° 7´ 22.8" W
• 40° 7.38’ , -74° 7.38’
• N40°7’22.8, W74°7’22.8"
• 40°7’22.8"N, 74°7’22.8"W
• 40 7 22.8, -74 7 22.8
• 40.123 -74.123
• 40.123°,-74.123°
• 144442800, -266842800
• 40.123N74.123W
• 4007.38N7407.38W
• 40°7’22.8"N, 74°7’22.8"W
• 400722.8N740722.8W
• N 40 7.38 W 74 7.38
• 40:7:23N,74:7:23W
• 40:7:22.8N 74:7:22.8W
• 40°7’23"N 74°7’23"W
• 40°7’23" -74°7’23"
• 40d 7’ 23" N 74d 7’ 23" W
• 40.123N 74.123W
• 40° 7.38, -74° 7.38

... and others that follow a similar pattern.

Handles also the following "exotic" formats:

• 145505994.48, -268708007.88 (geographical milliseconds)
• 4025.0999N7438.4668W (DDMM.xxxx)
• 402505.994N743828.008W (DDMMSS.xxxx)

Coordinate validation

Input that does not resemble valid coordinates will throw an error.

The parser will detect invalid formats such as 40.123N FOOBAR 74.123W (invalid characters), 40.123W 74.123N (latitude/longitude exchanged) and 40.12 12.34 74.12 (odd numbers).

Flexibility towards non-alphanumeric characters and whitespaces is maintained.

std::string error;
double latitude, longitude = 0;

bool valid = CoordinateParser::parse("40:7:22.8N 74:7:22.8W", latitude, longitude, error); // true
bool valid = CoordinateParser::parse("40.123 FOOBAR! 74.123", latitude, longitude, error); // false

Licence

This software is licensed under the Apache 2 license: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Credit

Originally developed for javascript by otto-dev and WEPROG.