#!/usr/bin/python with open('01a.txt') as f: text = f.read().strip() lines = text.split('\n') a = [0] * len(lines) b = a[:] for i in range(len(lines)): spl = lines[i].split(' ', maxsplit=1) a[i] = int(spl[0].strip()) b[i] = int(spl[1].strip()) a.sort() b.sort() total = 0 for x, y in zip(a, b): total += abs(x - y) print(total)