Question

I want to get the absolute value of a number in JavaScript. That is, drop the sign.
I know mathematically I can do this by squaring the number then taking the square root, but I also know that this is horribly inefficient.

x = -25
x = x * x 
x = Math.sqrt(x)
console.log(x)

Is there a way in JavaScript to simply drop the sign of a number that is more efficient than the mathematical approach?

Answer 1

You mean like getting the absolute value of a number? The Math.abs javascript function is designed exactly for this purpose.

var x = -25;
x = Math.abs(x); // x would now be 25 
console.log(x);

Here are some test cases from the documentation:

Math.abs('-1');     // 1
Math.abs(-2);       // 2
Math.abs(null);     // 0
Math.abs("string"); // NaN
Math.abs();         // NaN