java.lang.StrictMath abs​(float a)

Description

The abs​(float a) method of StrictMath class returns the absolute value of a float value. If the argument is not negative, the argument is returned. If the argument is negative, the negation of the argument is returned. Special cases:

  • If the argument is positive zero or negative zero, the result is positive zero.
  • If the argument is infinite, the result is positive infinity.
  • If the argument is NaN, the result is NaN.

Notes:

As implied by the above, one valid implementation of this method is given by the expression below which computes a float with the same exponent and significand as the argument but with a guaranteed zero sign bit indicating a positive value:

Float.intBitsToFloat(0x7fffffff & Float.floatToRawIntBits(a))

The abs​(float a) method of StrictMath class is static thus it should be accessed statically which means the we would be calling this method in this format:

StrictMath.abs​(float a)

Non static method is usually called by just declaring method_name(argument) however in this case since the method is static, it should be called by appending the class name as suffix. We will be encountering a compilation problem if we call the java compare method non statically.

Method Syntax

public static double abs​(float a)

Method Argument

Data Type Parameter Description
float a the argument whose absolute value is to be determined.

Method Returns

The abs​(float a) method returns the absolute value of the argument.

Compatibility

Requires Java 1.3 and up

Java StrictMath abs​(float a) Example

Below is a java code demonstrates the use of abs​(float a) method of StrictMath class. Basically it takes a long input from user and then it displays the absolute value of the long input.

package com.javatutorialhq.java.examples;


import java.util.Scanner;

/*
 * A java example source code to demonstrate
 * the use of abs​(float a) method of Math class
 */

public class StrictMathAbsFloatExample {

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		// Ask user input (float datatype)
		System.out.print("Enter a float:");
		
		// declare the scanner object
		Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);		
		
		// use scanner to get the user input and store it to a variable
		float fValue = scan.nextFloat();			
		
		// close the scanner object
		scan.close();		
		
		// get the absolute value of the user input
		float result = StrictMath.abs(fValue);
		
		// print the result
		System.out.println("result: "+result);

	}

}

Sample Output

Below is the sample output when you run the above example.

Java StrictMath abs(float a) method example output