What does this do?

I can't figure out what this bit of code is doing:

    [m,n]=find(min(a))

I know that it is not returning the indices of the minimum entries in the array 'a', but what is it doing?

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

[m,n]=min(a)

m is the minimum, n is the index of n m in a

You can try an example

a=[4 7 3 6 2 7 8]
[m,n]=min(a)

Now if you write

r=find(min(a))

you will find the result

r=1

because in our example min(a)=2, it contains just one elment, so there is one index=1

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

If a is a 2D or more array, then min(a) would return the minimum along the first dimension. Some of those minima might be negative, some might be positive, some might be 0. find() applied to that is going to return the indices of the non-zero elements within that minima. For example if a is 2D array then [m,n]=find(min(a)) is going to return the indices of the columns where the minima is non-zero.