We have a little project where we are supposed to program absolute value without math.abs method. The question goes like this: "Suppose x and y are variables of type double. Write a program that reads in x and then sets y to the absolute value of x without calling the Math.abs() method."
Can someone help me with the code? What do you even code to accomplish this? Thank you in advance!!
I think you can probably figure this one out just with a hint.
What happens to negative numbers when they are multiplied by -1?
Note that you can check if numbers are less than zero using if and then do something about less than zero numbers.
If you still get stuck after thinking on that for a few minutes shoot me a pm.
Edit: as long as you don't ask me to just write out all the code for you.
You could just see if the number is less than 0 and then multiply it by -1
If you look inside Math.abs you can probably find the best answer:
Eg, for floats:
/*
* Returns the absolute value of a {@code float} value.
* If the argument is not negative, the argument is returned.
* If the argument is negative, the negation of the argument is returned.
* Special cases:
* <ul><li>If the argument is positive zero or negative zero, the
* result is positive zero.
* <li>If the argument is infinite, the result is positive infinity.
* <li>If the argument is NaN, the result is NaN.</ul>
* In other words, the result is the same as the value of the expression:
* <p>{@code Float.intBitsToFloat(0x7fffffff & Float.floatToIntBits(a))}
*
* @param a the argument whose absolute value is to be determined
* @return the absolute value of the argument.
*/
public static float abs(float a) {
return (a <= 0.0F) ? 0.0F - a : a;
}
Yes:
abs_number = (number < 0) ? -number : number;
For integers, this works fine (except for Integer.MIN_VALUE, whose absolute value cannot be represented as an int).
For floating-point numbers, things are more subtle. For example, this method -- and all other methods posted thus far -- won't handle the negative zero correctly.
To avoid having to deal with such subtleties yourself, my advice would be to stick to Math.abs().