Distance Calculation Using Latitude And Longitude In C

ZIPCodeWorld.com provides this routine to calculate the distance between two points (given the latitude/longitude of those points) in C. It is being used to calculate distance between two points lat1, long1 and lat2, long2 and uses radius of earth in kilometers or miles as an argurments using our ZIPCodeWorld(TM) and PostalCodeWorld(TM) products which offer the United States ZIP codes, Canadian Postal Codes, Mexican Postal Codes and North American Area Codes database subscription and solution services.


#include 

#define pi 3.14159265358979323846

double distance(double lat1, double lon1, double lat2, double lon2, char unit) {
  double theta, dist;
  theta = lon1 - lon2;
  dist = sin(deg2rad(lat1)) * sin(deg2rad(lat2)) + cos(deg2rad(lat1)) * cos(deg2rad(lat2)) * cos(deg2rad(theta));
  dist = acos(dist);
  dist = rad2deg(dist);
  dist = dist * 60 * 1.1515;
  switch(unit) {
    case 'M':
      break;
    case 'K':
      dist = dist * 1.609344;
      break;
    case 'N':
      dist = dist * 0.8684;
      break;
  }
  return (dist);
}

/*:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::*/
/*::  This function converts decimal degrees to radians             :*/
/*:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::*/
double deg2rad(double deg) {
  return (deg * pi / 180);
}

/*:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::*/
/*::  This function converts radians to decimal degrees             :*/
/*:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::*/
double rad2deg(double rad) {
  return (rad * 180 / pi);
}