moving an object from point to point in a linear path

Question

I'm trying to move a sprite across the screen in a straight line, towards on the location where've I touched the screen, what i did was upon the update() in each loop , it checks to see if the current sprite's location x y is == to the destination x ,y . if it hasn't sprite's x++ and y++... the thing is ..it ain't moving in a straight line... as there are cases where the x or y coordinate reaches the destination x or y first... how do i changed it so that the both x and y meets the destination together?

my current pseudo code for the sprite object

             destX = destination X
             destY = destination Y

             posX = current X
             posY = current Y
               public void update(){
                if(destX > posX && destY < posY)
                {

                    posX++;
                    posY--;
                }
                else if (destX > posX && destY > posY){
                    posX++;
                    posY++;
                }
                else if(destX < posX && destY > posY)
                {
                    posX--;
                    posY++;
                }
                else if(destX < posX && destY < posY){
                    posX--;
                    posY--;
                }
                else if(destX < posX)
                    posX--;
                else if(destX > posX)
                    posX++;
                else if(destY < posY)
                    posY--;
                else if(destY > posY)
                    posY++;

Answer 1

Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bresenham%27s_line_algorithm

This simple algorithm will tell you each X,Y coordinate on a line between two points. You could use this algorithm to compute all of the positions it needs to visit, store the coordinates in an array, and iterate over the array as you update the position.

From the Article:

  function line(x0, x1, y0, y1)
         int deltax := x1 - x0
         int deltay := y1 - y0
         real error := 0
         real deltaerr := abs (deltay / deltax)    // Assume deltax != 0 (line is not vertical),
               // note that this division needs to be done in a way that preserves the fractional part
         int y := y0
         for x from x0 to x1
             plot(x,y)
             error := error + deltaerr
             if error ≥ 0.5 then
                 y := y + 1
                 error := error - 1.0

This is the most primitive version. The article contains a better generalized algorithm that you should look at.