http://qs321.pair.com?node_id=675708


in reply to Regex strings, deg:mm:ss, and all that

I don't know if you realize it but you are modifying the input string so that

my $pos = latlong_cleanup($data); # now $pos eq $data

You can grab the data you want using a single regex. I don't know what format the data is but I'll assume
23°34'N 12°25'W

use strict; use warnings; use YAML; use utf8; # to cope with the degree symbol in my test data. my $data = "23°34'N 12°25'W"; print Dump latlong_cleanup($data); sub latlong_cleanup { my $input = shift; if ( my ( $degN, $minN, $NS, $degE, $minE, $EW ) = $input =~ /(\d+)\xB0(\d+)'([NS]) +(\d+)\xB0(\d+)'([EW])/ ) { my $lat = sprintf "%0.2f", ( $NS eq 'S' ? -1 : 1 ) * ( $degN + ( $minN / 60 ) ); my $long = sprintf "%0.2f", ( $EW eq 'W' ? -1 : 1 ) * ( $degE + ( $minE / 60 ) ); return [ $lat, $long ]; } die "Invalid data [$input]"; } __END__ --- - 23.57 - -12.42