distlatlon

  distlatlon(lat1, lon1, lat2, lon2 [, method] )

The distlatlon function calculates the distance, in miles, between two points, represented in latitude/longitude pairs in decimal degree format.

Like distgeocode, it uses the ``Great Circle'' method by default, but can be overridden to use the faster, less accurate Pythagorean method if ``pythagorean'' is passed as the optional method parameter.

For example:

• New York (JFK) to Cleveland (CLE), the Pythagorean method is off by .8 miles (.1%)

• New York (JFK) to Los Angeles (LAX), the Pythagorean method is off by 22.2 miles (.8%)

• New York (JFK) to South Africa (PLZ), the Pythagorean method is off by 430 miles (5.2%)