G.2.2.4 Geographical distance and course angle %[format]bargument special text

%[format]b[*][mode]ISO-6709:1983-co-ordinate-1/ISO-6709:1983-co-ordinate-2 references either the approximate air line distance or the approximate course angle (true track)⁸⁴ between any of two geographic point locations. The selection, which value has to be calculated by using this special text is done by specifying the mode part of the preceding argument. Actually, exactly three different modes can be used that are represented by the ‘0’…‘2’ characters:

If no mode is given, Gcal automatically uses that mode, which is enabled by the mode character ‘0’. If a mode character is given that is not according to one of the ‘0’…‘2’ characters, Gcal also automatically uses that mode, which is enabled by the mode character ‘0’.

After the optional style and mode characters, the latitude and longitude of the geographic co-ordinates follows, for which the calculations must be made. They must be conform the ISO-6709:1983 standard representation of latitude and longitude for geographic point locations. The two co-ordinates have to be separated by a ‘/’ termination character from each other.

See Arguments of the Sun oriented special texts, for the detailed description of the components of the ISO-6709:1983 standard representation of latitude and longitude for geographic point locations.

For example:

The text ‘Distance Paris-Tokyo: %b+4852+00220/+3542+13946 km’ will be expanded to
→ ‘Distance Paris-Tokyo: 9746km’.

The text ‘Distance Paris-Tokyo: %b*0+4852+00220/+3542+13946 ms’ will be expanded to
→ ‘Distance Paris-Tokyo: 6056ms’.

The text ‘Course angle Paris-Tokyo: %b1+4852+00220/+3542+13946’ will be expanded to
→ ‘Course angle Paris-Tokyo: 033d22'’.

The text ‘Course angle Tokyo-Paris: %b*2+4852+00220/+3542+13946’ will be expanded to
→ ‘Course angle Tokyo-Paris: 333.548’.

While praying, people of Islamic faith always turn their heads into the direction of Makkah, Saudi-Arabia. Now by means of Gcal, these people can easily find out for their respective location, where they have to turn to, and that by:

%b1ISO-6709:1983-co-ordinate-1/+212516+0394929

where ISO-6709:1983-co-ordinate-1 is simply replaced by the co-ordinate of the respective location.

See Fixed date option --precise, how to obtain a more precise representation of the values that are caused by this special text.

This special text must always be trailed by a whitespace character which is removed in output!