Skip to content

Add support for negative numbers in sum_of_digits function #3060

@LucasCiv

Description

@LucasCiv

🐛 Current Behavior
The sum_of_digits() function currently only works with non-negative integers. When a negative number is passed, it enters an infinite loop or produces incorrect results.

python:

Current implementation fails with negative numbers

sum_of_digits(-123) # Does not work correctly

✅ Expected Behavior
The function should handle negative numbers by computing the sum of digits using the absolute value.

python
sum_of_digits(-123) # Should return 6 (1 + 2 + 3)
sum_of_digits(-456) # Should return 15 (4 + 5 + 6)

💡 Proposed Solution
Add abs() to handle negative numbers in the sum_of_digits function:

def sum_of_digits(n: int) -> int:
"""
Compute the sum of the digits of an integer.

Args:
    n: An integer (negative values are converted to absolute).

Returns:
    Sum of digits of the absolute value of the number.

Examples:
    >>> sum_of_digits(123)
    6
    >>> sum_of_digits(-789)
    24
"""
n = abs(n)  # Handle negative numbers
total = 0

while n > 0:
    total += n % 10
    n //= 10

return total

📋 Additional Improvements (Optional)

Update docstring to clarify behavior with negative numbers
Add doctests for negative numbers
Update main() to display absolute value when input is negative:

python
abs_display = f" (absolute value: {abs(number)})" if number < 0 else ""
print(f"The sum of the digits of {number}{abs_display} is: {result}")

🧪 Test Cases

sum_of_digits(123) → 6
sum_of_digits(-123) → 6
sum_of_digits(0) → 0
sum_of_digits(-999) → 27

sum_of_digits.py (or the relevant file name)

🏷️ Labels
enhancement, good first issue, bug

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    No labels
    No labels

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions