def METHOD_NAME(p: str):
    """
    Parse  an encoded position.
    Please note that this does not support all the
    variants Manatee supports. This is just enough
    to cover KonText form data. Other variants throw
    ValueError.
    """
    srch = re.search(r'(-?\d+)(<|>)0', p)
    if not srch:
        raise ValueError(f'unsupported position specification {p}')