How to calculate the distance between two points using return methods in python?

Question

I'm still new to python and have been trying to get the hang of it. I've been trying to learn simple return methods but I can't seem to get the hang of it. I have been trying to find the distance between two points and this is what I have so far. If anyone could help me figure this out it would be very helpful! Thank you!

import math

def calculateDistance(x1,y1,x2,y2):
     dist = math.sqrt((x2 - x1)**2 + (y2 - y1)**2)
     return dist

calculateDistance(2,4,6,8)

print calculateDistance

Solution 1

Why don't you use math.hypot() to calculate the distance?

>>> import math
>>> p1 = (3, 5)  # point 1 coordinate
>>> p2 = (5, 7)  # point 2 coordinate
>>> math.hypot(p2[0] - p1[0], p2[1] - p1[1]) # Linear distance 
2.8284271247461903

Solution 2

Store the result in a variable

import math

def calculateDistance(x1,y1,x2,y2):
     dist = math.sqrt((x2 - x1)**2 + (y2 - y1)**2)
     return dist

distance = calculateDistance(2,4,6,8)

print distance

Or print the result directly

import math

def calculateDistance(x1,y1,x2,y2):
     dist = math.sqrt((x2 - x1)**2 + (y2 - y1)**2)
     return dist

print calculateDistance(2,4,6,8)

Comments

[piit79]

While this works, the answer doesn't address the issue in the question - the fact that the user wasn't correctly printing the return value of the function. Furthermore, the user specifically mentioned coding a function that returns a value, while your prints it instead.