Coordinates format

[Martin Jerabek]

On 31.01.2009 18:45, Jonas Melian wrote:
> I've seen that is used the format "+-DDMM+-DDDMM" or "+-DDMMSS+-DDDMMSS"
> to represent latitude and longitude according to ISO-6709 [1] standard.
>
> 1) But, the standard is used whith decimals:
> ±DDMM.MMM ±DDDMM.MMM (degrees and minutes)
> ±DDMMSS.SS ±DDDMMSS.SS (degrees, minutes and seconds)
>   

As I understand the standard, minutes, seconds, and fractional seconds 
are optional and can be omitted. The Wikipedia article you cite gives 
the example of France with just degrees, and Paris with just degrees and 
minutes.
> 2) Could your database to use one only way to represent the format? Or
> degrees and minutes; or degrees, minutes and seconds. So, the
> coordinates could be stored as float in the data bases, since that we
> know its total length.
>   

I am not sure if I understand you correctly but is it not trivial to 
convert the coordinates to the desired format when you store it in the 
database?

Regards
Martin Jerabek