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 have an array, you can also use numpy.diff:

import numpy as np
a = [1,5,6,8]
np.diff(a)
Out: array([4, 1, 2])

Answer 2

So simple just use abs((a) - (b)).

will work seamless without any additional care in signs(positive , negative)

def get_distance(p1,p2):
     return abs((p1) - (p2))

get_distance(0,2)
2

get_distance(0,2)
2

get_distance(-2,0)
2

get_distance(2,-1)
3

get_distance(-2,-1)
1

Answer 3

Just use abs(x - y). This'll return the net difference between the two as a positive value, regardless of which value is larger.

Answer 4

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)

Answer 5

abs(x-y) will do exactly what you're looking for:

In [1]: abs(1-2)
Out[1]: 1

In [2]: abs(2-1)
Out[2]: 1

Answer 6

You can try: a=[0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9];

[abs(x[1]-x[0]) for x in zip(a[1:],a[:-1])]