Difference between 2 numbers

Question

I need the perfect algorithm or C# function to calculate the difference (distance) between 2 decimal numbers.

For example the difference between:
100 and 25 is 75
100 and -25 is 125
-100 and -115 is 15
-500 and 100 is 600

Is there a C# function or a very elegant algorithm to calculate this or I have to go and handle every case separately with ifs.

If there is such a function or algorithm, which one is it?

Answer 1

You can do it like this

public decimal FindDifference(decimal nr1, decimal nr2)
{
  return Math.Abs(nr1 - nr2);
}

Answer 2

result = Math.Abs(value1 - value2);

Answer 3

I don't think it's possible in C#, you may need to look at implementing it in Assembler

Answer 4

Basically you need a program like MATLAB or Mathematica to work out all the possible combinations, and then store them in a database.

Someone should host an online repository for these, as I'd imagine the database will be quite large.

Answer 5

Just adding this, as nobody wrote it here:

While you can surely use

Math.Abs(number1 - number2);

which is the easiest solution (and accepted answer), I wonder nobody wrote out what Abs actually does. Here's a solution that works in Java, C, C# and every other language with C like syntax:

int result = number1 - number2;
if (result < 0) {
    result *= -1;
}

It's that simple. You can also write it like this:

int result = number1 > number2 ? number1 - number2 : number2 - number1;

The last one could be even faster once it got compiled (both have one if and one subtraction, but the first one has a multiplication in some cases, the last one has not). The first one is actually doing what Abs is working.