Finding distance between 2 coordinates in solidity

Question

It is said that distance is equal to the following formula:

distance = sqrt( (x2 - x1)**2 + (y2 - y1)**2 )

I do this exact formula in the function below. However, the problem I run into is when x2 is less than x1, for example, I get an error because uint256 can't be negative.

Does anyone know how I can account for this in solidity when calculating distance?

function getDistance(uint256 x1, uint256 x2, uint256 y1, uint256 y1, ) private view returns(uint256) {
  return sqrt(((x2 - x1)**2) + ((y2 - y1)**2));
}

function sqrt(uint x) private pure returns (uint y) {
  uint z = (x + 1) / 2;
    y = x;
    while (z < y) {
        y = z;
        z = (x / z + z) / 2;
    }
  } 

Answer 1

Instead of using uint256 use int256 so you can accept negative number