How do I find the difference between two values without knowing which is larger?

Question

I was wondering if there was a function built into Python that can determine the distance between two rational numbers but without me telling it which number is larger. e.g.

Answer 1

If you don't need a signed integer, this is an alternative that uses a slightly different approach, is easy to read and doesn't require an import:

def distance(a, b):
  if a > 0 and b > 0:
    return max(a, b) - min(a, b)
  elif a < 0 and b < 0:
    return abs(a - b)
  elif a == b:
    return 0
  return abs(a - 0) + abs(b - 0)