Golang : Converting a negative number to positive number

Helping out a friend here to figure out why her totalizer formula is spitting out incorrect result. Apparently, what she wanted to achieve is to convert a negative number to positive number so that her totalizer formula will calculate properly.

According to her co-workers, there are times when the field instrument will pump out negative number (flow rate), but it should be assumed to be a positive number and the numbers from a few measurement instruments have to be added up.

Sometimes, the simplest thing can be hardest to spot and we just assume the final calculation is correct. Writing this down as a reminder on how to convert a negative number to positive number properly with math.Abs() function.

Not going to show you the actual formula in totaling up the flow rates, but a simple example will do.

Here you go!

 package main

 import (
  "fmt"
  "math"
 )

 func main() {
  total := 1 + 1 + (-1)

  fmt.Println("Total : ", total) 

  correctTotal := 1 + 1 + math.Abs(-1) // convert negative 1 to positive

  fmt.Println("Correct total with absolute : ", correctTotal)

 }

Output:

Total : 1

Correct total with absolute : 3