shortest way to calculate difference between two numbers?
<p>I'm about to do this in c++ but I have had to do it in several languages, it's a fairly common and simple problem, and this is the last time. I've had enough of coding it as I do, I'm sure there must be a better method, so I'm posting here before I write out the same long winded method in yet another language;</p>

<p>Consider the (<strike>lilies!</strike>) following code;</p>

<pre><code>// I want the difference between these two values as a positive integer
int x = 7
int y = 3
int diff;
// This means you have to find the largest number first 
// before making the subtract, to keep the answer positive
if (x&gt;y) { 
     diff = (x-y);
} else if (y&gt;x) {
     diff = (y-x);
} else if (x==y) {
    diff = 0;
}
</code></pre>

<p>This may sound petty but that seems like a lot to me, just to get the difference between two numbers. Is this in fact a completely reasonable way of doing things and I'm being unnecessarily pedantic, or is my spidey sense tingling with good reason?</p>
