Absolute numbers?

[ericonline]

Hello,

How do I get the absolute value of a number?

Example:

sub(10,11)

Which equals -1. I need to get the absolute value of 1 from this statement. 
How can this be accomplished?
Thank you 

[v-litu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @ericonline,

Unfortunately, there is no ABS function exist in Power Automate, as a workaround, you can determine it is whether less than 0, if it is, convert it to a string, then remove the "-" character, then convert it into an integer, for example:

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ Lin Tu
If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[ericonline]

Just searched the forum for this topic (2021-01-12T16:23)... forgot I even asked it.

You know what the old timers say... "I've forgotten more than you'll ever learn about PowerPlatform". 

Iiiitts happeniiiing 🙂

[v-litu-msft]

It's so funny. Cheer up.

[raf-avag_99]

You can also wrap those numbers in max() min() and then calculate the difference:

sub(max(x,y),min(x,y))

[Anonymous]

Yet another workaround required for what should be a standard function. How are people still using power apps.. It takes about 3 times as long to create something far less robust and more flaky than traditional software development. There's no unit testing of anything, no adequate debugging, no source control - if someone updates a flow no-one knows what was changed. I can't believe how shoddy it is honestly. Maybe if people aren't from a software development background they are none the wiser and think this is great... I can assure you it definitely is not.

[Baudelaire]

Some things about it are awesome, but it's definitely not a replacement for all REAL software development, for example, in C#.  I have spent days trying to get something fairly simple to work within the constraints of Power Automate and then realize I could have coded it in a few hours.  This is all the result of marketing hype and corporate lust for reducing staff developer costs and project cycle times.  This notion that you can democratize development by extending capabilities to anyone.  Give me a break.  There's a reason it takes formal education and/or years of experience to create stable, scalable, secure apps.  MS really doesn't care about citizen development - they care about selling premium licenses by making organizations believe anybody can do development - just point and click. It will backfire in a few years.  Just wait until these companies have thousands of apps/flows that have lost owners or outgrown their owner's abilities and they come crying to IT to take it over, redo it, or just "fix it".  

[Baudelaire]

Humorously, if you ask the new Copilot inside of Power Automate how to get the absolute value of a number, it will add abs(...) to your action for you.  Then you run the flow and get an error saying there is no such action.  LOL.

[laeljh]

this should have been the best answer

[takolota]

The conditional also isn’t necessary. It will just return the same number if it isn’t negative.