Software to extract coordinates from text?

[Parsa]

I used to have a software program for Mac OS that would extract all the GPS or coordinate data from a text file and create a file with every set of coordinates on a line. I don't recall if it was comma or tab delimited, but either would be fine. I don't remember what app I was using. Does anyone know an application that will do this for me?

[+Timpat]

Have a look at GPSBabel

[Parsa]

Have a look at GPSBabel

 

I have GPSBabel, but I wasn't aware it would extract coordinates from a general text file full of other text.

[robertlipe]

With such a vague requirement, nothing is going to fulfill it. "Eighty three degrees and sixty four one hundredths north" isn't likely to parse in most software. If you have even some vague structure, GPSBabel may be able to help.

 

Signed,

GPSBabel Creator.

[Parsa]

Let's say I had a document with entries like the following excerpt:

 

ARIZONA

 

Navajo National Monument (Kayenta) — 36.678227, -110.541034

Keet Seel (Kitsʼiil, Kiet Siel) — 36.760762, -110.496314

Betatakin (Bitátʼahkin) — 36.683988, -110.536184

Inscription House (Tsʼah Biiʼ Kin) — 36.670274, -110.819878

 

Canyon de Chelly National Monument (Chinle) — 36.153166, -109.539019

First Ruin — 36.144105, -109.501805

Junction Ruin — 36.145726, -109.489133

Ruin — 36.137805, -109.485667

White House Ruin — 36.133747, -109.470477

 

How would I enter this into GPSBabel? What format would I chose? Or would I have to do a lot of editing to make it comma delimited?

[+Team CowboyPapa]

OK, I see an example of the input above.

 

Now, how would the output that you desire appear?

[+Team CowboyPapa]

Dupe

Edited March 13, 2016 by Team CowboyPapa

[+MartyBartfast]

I believe the Mac comes with the awk utility (if not then you can probably install it from somewhere), and if so I think this should do it for you from a command line, although I've never used a Mac so I'm making some assumptions, but it's worth a try:

 

Assuming your list above is in a.txt, and you want to create a.csv which gpsbabel will accept

awk -F\— '{printf "%s , %s \n",$2,$1}' a.txt > a.csv

What this is doing is reading a.txt and splitting it at the — character, and printing the part on the right (the co-ord pair) first followed by a comma and then the part to the left (the name), to create a comma separated file in the format that gpsbabel likes. Note this won't work properly if the waypoint name has a — in it.

 

Now use gpsbabel to convert a.csv into a.gpx to go on the GPS

gpsbabel -i csv -f a.csv -o gpx -F a.gpx

 

Note if the name of the waypoint has a comma in it then it will produce an incompatible .csv file as there will be too many commas.

 

Catering for cases where the waypoint name has either a comma or a — in it would turn this into a "proper" program, rather than a 2 line solution so it would probably be simpler to tidy up the input file first to remove them if they exist []

[Parsa]

I believe the Mac comes with the awk utility ... <snip>

 

Marty, that's interesting. I suppose I could do that in command line app Terminal.

[+MartyBartfast]

I believe the Mac comes with the awk utility ... <snip>

 

Marty, that's interesting. I suppose I could do that in command line app Terminal.

 

I think you could, in fact you could reduce the whole thing to a single line:

 

awk -F\— '{printf "%s , %s \n",$2,$1}' a.txt | gpsbabel -i csv -f- -o gpx -F a.gpx