I need help sorting GPS data

I need to sort a set of GPS data which was collected on a petroleum
pipe line into the correct order. What's the best way to do this?
Taking into account the occasional erroneous read...

google@robertbennett.us wrote:

You can write a script that goes through each point, starting at the
first one, and that search for the nearest neighbor. This nearest
neighbor must not be a point that you have already consider (so you
don't go backward). Index each point as they are found.

If your points are in a small area, use UTM coordinates (very easy to
compute the distances between points). Otherwise, search this newsgroup
for the equation on how to compute distances between lat-long points.

Jean