Hi All,

This  below is a rewrite that I did  of a program that I discovered at
Google
Topic: Latitude and Longitude calculations in Java? contibutor:
#6 by Paul McName
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.java.programmer/browse_frm/thread/6e0e9
702e3e0b9db?q=places+location+longitude&hl=en&

I never saw the notation "35.5F" and never saw  " lat1 *= DEG2RAD;"
Yet it with the changes that I wrote it does run.

Is this authentic java?

Bob

import java.io.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class Places {

 public static void main (String [] args) {
   Place [ ] places = new Place [4];
   places[0] = new Place("Baltimore", 35.5F, -75.5F);
   places[1] = new Place("Java", -5.0F, 110.0F);
   places[2] = new Place("Hawaii", 20F, -160.0F);
   places[3] = new Place("Equator", 0F, 0F) ;

   // Write Data
   try {
     FileOutputStream  fos= new FileOutputStream("geo.txt");
     BufferedWriter bow = new BufferedWriter(new
OutputStreamWriter(fos));
     for(int i=0; i<places.length; i++) {

       bow.write(places[i].getName()+"\n");  // write a string
       bow.write(Float.toString(places[i].getLatitude())+"\n");  //
write a float
       bow.write(Float.toString(places[i].getLongitude())+"\n");
     }
     bow.close();
   }
   catch (IOException ioe) {
     System.out.println("IOException writing places to geo.txt");
   }

   try {
     Place bahrain = new Place("Bahrain", 25.0F, 50.0F);
     FileInputStream  fis= new FileInputStream("geo.txt");
     BufferedReader bor = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(fis));
     String str,stra,strb ="";

     //float a,b;
     for(int i=0; i<places.length; i++) {
       str = bor.readLine();  // write a string
       stra = bor.readLine();
       strb = bor.readLine();

       float a = Float.valueOf(stra);
       float b =  Float.valueOf(strb);
       System.out.println("Read in: " + str + " (" + a + "," + b +
")");
       System.out.println("\tDistance from " + bahrain.getName() + "
to " + str + " is " +
                          Location.Distance(bahrain, new Place(str, a,
b)) + " nmi");
     }
     bor.close();
   }
   catch (IOException ioe) {
     System.out.println("IOException reading places from geo.txt");
   }
 }
}

class Location {
 private float latitude ;
 private float longitude ;

 // Default (no-argument constructor)
 public Location ( ) {
   latitude = longitude = 0.0F;
 }

 // Two-argument constructor
 public Location(float lat, float lon) {
   latitude = lat;
   longitude = lon;
 }

 public float getLatitude() {          return latitude ;       }
 public float getLongitude() {                 return longitude ;
}

 public void setLatitude (float lat) {
   latitude = lat;
 }

 public void setLongitude (float lon) {
   longitude = lon;
 }

 static float Distance(Location l1, Location l2) {
   float lat1 = l1.getLatitude();
   float lat2 = l2.getLatitude();
   float lon1 = l1.getLongitude();
   float lon2 = l2.getLongitude();
   float val;

   final float DEG2RAD = 0.01745F ;

   if ((lat1 == lat2) && (lon1 == lon2)) {
     val = 0.0F;
   } else {
     lat1 *= DEG2RAD;
     lat2 *= DEG2RAD;
     lon1 *= DEG2RAD;
     lon2 *= DEG2RAD;
     val = (float) (60.0 * ((Math.acos((Math.sin(lat1) *
                                        Math.sin(lat2)) +
(Math.cos(lat1) * Math.cos(lat2) *

Math.cos(lon2 - lon1))))
                              / DEG2RAD));
   }
   return (val);  // distance in nautilus miles
 }
}

class Place extends Location {
 String name;
 public Place(String where, float lat, float lon) {
   super(lat, lon);
   name = where;
 }
 public String getName() { return name; }  
}