does GIS DMS data type already exist?

Hey,

I am builing a system that is going to be dealing with a large
amount of GIS (geographic) data from USGS.  Some of their data
provides lattitude and longitude in the DMS (degrees minnutes seconds)
format, other provides lat/lon in decimal format.  The decimal is
obviously not a problem for postgres, but the DMS is.  I am going to
need to be doing queries based on the DMS data, and will need it
treated as numeric instead of just a text string.

Soooo (to get to my question already!) what I want to know is
whether anyone else has already coded up a data type to do this
kind of thing or whether I just have to do it myself.

I search around but didn't find one.

Thanks for you time.

dv


// David E. Vandewalle          | The best diplomat I know is a fully
// vandewal@skyblue.com         | activated phaser bank.
// david.e.vandewalle@lmco.com  |     -- Scotty