Make a negative number positive

java negative-number
Tray picture Tray · Jan 29, 2009 · Viewed 324.3k times · Source

I have a Java method in which I'm summing a set of numbers. However, I want any negatives numbers to be treated as positives. So (1)+(2)+(1)+(-1) should equal 5.

I'm sure there is very easy way of doing this - I just don't know how.

Answer

Jon Skeet picture Jon Skeet · Jan 29, 2009

Just call Math.abs. For example:

int x = Math.abs(-5);

Which will set x to 5.

Note that if you pass Integer.MIN_VALUE, the same value (still negative) will be returned, as the range of int does not allow the positive equivalent to be represented.

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