I thought it might be more convenient to add an abs to the built-in function to solve the problem of taking the absolute value of all integers and floating point numbers.

I thought it might be more convenient to add an abs to the built-in function to solve the problem of taking the absolute value of all integers and floating point numbers.

I think it's a good idea

Note that you can write this function as max(x, -x).

If we do want to add this somewhere, I don't think the math package is the right place, as the math package is primarily for floating-point operations. And I definitely don't think that FastAbs is the right name; it's no faster than math.Abs.

Note that you can write this function as max(x, -x).

If we do want to add this somewhere, I don't think the math package is the right place, as the math package is primarily for floating-point operations. And I definitely don't think that FastAbs is the right name; it's no faster than math.Abs.

How about add a abs function as builtin. it calculate the absolute value of both integers and float pointer numbers.

This proposal has been added to the active column of the proposals project
and will now be reviewed at the weekly proposal review meetings.
— rsc for the proposal review group

If we were going to add a builtin abs, I would make it take a signed int and return the corresponding unsigned type, so that there are no cases where it can return a negative number. func Abs(int8)int8 cannot do anything useful with Abs(-128) for example.

That said, abs comes up far less often than min and max and can easily be provided by third-party libraries for now.

Based on the discussion above, this proposal seems like a likely decline.
— rsc for the proposal review group

Note that you can write this function as max(x, -x).

How would that work on an int8 for -128?

In int8, -(-128) is -128, so it would evaluate max(-128, -128) = -128.

In int8, -(-128) is -128, so it would evaluate max(-128, -128) = -128.

Same as the proposed abs function.

No change in consensus, so declined.
— rsc for the proposal review group