Why this absolute value bars appeard from the left term of square root?

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I encounterd the problem of absolute sign of the below equation.

$$\sqrt{x^2+a^2+2xa}-\sqrt{x^{2}+a^{2}-2xa}=(x+a)-|x-a|$$

$$a,x>0$$

The below stuff are what I tried.

$f(x):=\sqrt{x^2+a^2+2xa}-\sqrt{x^{2}+a^{2}-2xa}$

$f(x)=\sqrt{(x+a)^{2}}-\sqrt{(x-a)^{2}}$

=$\left((x+a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}-\left((x-a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

=$\left(x+a\right)^{\frac{1}{1}}-\left((x-a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

=$\left(x+a\right)-\left((x-a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

So the problem is the rightmost term.

As we develop it greedily,

$f(x)=\left(x+a\right)-\left((x-a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

$=\left(x+a\right)-\left(x-a\right)^{\frac{1}{1}}$

$=2a$

However the below equations also be held.

$f(x)=\left(x+a\right)-\left((x-a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

$=\left(x+a\right)-\left((-1)^{2}(x-a)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

$=\left(x+a\right)-\left((a-x)^{2}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}$

$=\left(x+a\right)-\left(a-x\right)$

$=2x$

What is going on?

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We have $$\sqrt{x^2+a^2+2ax} - \sqrt{x^2+a^2-2ax} = |x+a|-|x-a|$$ Now we should deal with the absolute values. By its definition, $$|y| = \begin{cases} y, & y \ge 0 \\ -y, & y < 0 \end{cases}$$ we have $|x+a| = x+a$ since $x+a > 0$ and $$|x-a| = \begin{cases} x-a, & x-a \ge 0 \\ -(x-a), & x-a < 0 \end{cases}$$ Therefore, we leave the latter one with absolute values since we do not know whether $x \ge a$ or $x < a$.