Parsing a dictionary from a format string

[Tim Johnson]

Currently using python 2.6, but am serving some systems that have
older versions of python (no earlier than.
Question 1:
  With what version of python was str.format() first implemented?
Question 2:
  Given the following string: 
    S = 'Coordinates: {latitude}, {longitude}'
  Is there a python library that would provide an optimal way 
    to parse from S the following
  {'latitude':"",'longitude':""}  
  ?
Thanks
-- 
Tim 
tim at johnsons-web dot com or akwebsoft dot com
http://www.akwebsoft.com