header in r.in.ascii

[Cathy Ciret]

Hello,
I have a problem with the header section which describes the location and size
of the data:
          north:   xxxxxx.xx
          south:   xxxxxx.xx
          east:    xxxxxx.xx
          west:    xxxxxx.xx
          rows:    r
          cols:    c
When I try to enter value like : 177.5W or  178.3E I get a message error
(illegal value). On the other hand 180N is fine (and not 1800000.00 showed
in the manual).
So what is right? How can we enter coordinates in the header, or change value
in r.support correctly ?    
Thanks
Cathy