Find Distance Between Two Points in 2D()

Step 1: Understand the Problem

A 2D point is an ordered pair (x, y) where x and y are coordinates on the plane. The distance between two points in a 2D plane can be found using the Euclidean distance formula. We need to define a function that takes two points as parameters and returns the distance between them.

Step 2: Define the Function and Parameters

We will define our function as findDistance and it will take four parameters: x1, y1, x2, y2. These represent the X and Y coordinates of the two points respectively.

func findDistance(x1: Double, y1: Double, x2: Double, y2: Double) {
}

Step 3: Calculate the Difference

Within the function, we first need to find the difference between x coordinates (x2 - x1) and y coordinates (y2 - y1).

func findDistance(x1: Double, y1: Double, x2: Double, y2: Double) {
    let dx = x2 - x1
    let dy = y2 - y1
}

Step 4: Apply the Euclidean Formula

Next, apply the Euclidean distance formula with the calculated differences: Sqrt[(x2 - x1)² + (y2 - y1)²]. We use the pow function for squaring and sqrt function for square root.

func findDistance(x1: Double, y1: Double, x2: Double, y2: Double) -> Double {
    let dx = x2 - x1
    let dy = y2 - y1
    let distance = sqrt(pow(dx, 2) + pow(dy, 2))
    return distance
}

Step 5: Test the Function

Finally, let's test the function with some data. Imagine we have two points A(1,2) and B(4,6), the distance between these points should be 5.

let result = findDistance(x1: 1, y1: 2, x2: 4, y2: 6)
print(result) // Output: 5.0

Conclusion: We have successfully implemented a function in Swift to calculate the distance between two points in a 2D plane. This function can be widely used in areas such as computer graphics, physics, and algebra.