Subject: Feature Request / Parser Bug: Support DMS coordinate parsing with typographic symbols (Unicode primes/smart quotes)
Description:
The Waze search input parser fails to resolve valid geographic coordinates when pasted in the standard Degrees, Minutes, and Seconds (DMS) format containing typographic Unicode characters (such as curly apostrophes, prime, and double prime symbols).
Example of failing input:
50°9’49.079″N, 15°26’14.410″E
Root Cause & Steps to Reproduce:
1. Paste coordinates containing typographic prime symbols (’ U+2019 / ″ U+2033) or degree symbols (°) into the Waze search bar.
2. The search parser fails to sanitize/normalize the string into standard floating-point WGS84 decimal degrees (DD) before sending it to the geocoding service.
3. As a result, zero search results are returned for a completely valid geographic location.
Suggested Solution / Implementation:
Please update the search bar input regex / pre-processing pipeline to sanitize coordinates prior to geocoding:
Odrážka Normalize Unicode characters: Replace curly quotes (’, ‘), prime/double prime (′, ″), and typographic quotes with standard ASCII equivalents (', ") or strip them entirely.
Odrážka Regex Regex/Parser update: Implement robust regex matching for DMS input variations, converting standard/non-standard DMS formats (DD°MM'SS.s"N) directly to WGS84 Decimal Degrees (DD.dddddd) in the background before querying the geocoder.
Example Regex conversion logic:
Transform 50°9’49.079″N, 15°26’14.410″E \rightarrow 50.163633, 15.437336 seamlessly.