How can I use a value recursively in for loop

Hello everyone,

I have an issue with my code. I want to use recursively the new values of a and b created in if or elseif staments. I thought that I can use a for loop but I couldn't write the boundaries of it. My start position is (20, 70) and my goal position is (60, 40), so when a=60 && b=40 I want to end the code. But as I said the a value and the b value does not gradually increase. For example for a it starts from 20 to 19, later 18, later 19, later 20, later 21, etc. depending on the Utot values. Can you please help me how can I use these values recursively and plot these? Thank you.

a=20;
b=70;
%qstart=[a,b];

        A11 = Utot(a-1,b-1);
        A21 = Utot(a,b-1);
        A31 = Utot(a+1,b-1);
        A12 = Utot(a-1,b);
        A32 = Utot(a+1,b);
        A13 = Utot(a-1,b+1);
        A23 = Utot(a,b+1);
        A33 = Utot(a+1,b+1);
        
       xd=[A11 A21 A31 A12 A32 A13 A23 A33]
       if min(xd) < Utot(a, b)    
       [minValue, indexOfMinValue] = min(xd)
          if min(xd)==A11
                plot([a, a-1], [b, b-1])
                a=a-1;
                b=b-1;
            elseif min(xd)==A21
                plot([a,a], [b, b-1])
                a=a;
                b=b-1;
            elseif min(xd)==A31
                plot([a, a+1], [b, b-1])
                a=a+1;
                b=b-1;
            elseif min(xd)==A12
                plot([a, a-1], [b, b])
                a=a-1
                b=b  
            elseif min(xd)==A32
                plot([a, a+1], [b, b])
                a=a+1;
                b=b;
            elseif min(xd)==A13
                plot([a, a-1], [b, b+1])
                a=a-1;
                b=b+1; 
            elseif min(xd)==A23
                plot([a, a], [b, b+1])
                a=a;
                b=b+1;
            elseif min(xd)==A33
                plot([a, a+1], [b, b+1])
                a=a+1;
                b=b+1;
            end
       end

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

There is no loop here. As written, your sript will execute just once.

You probably want to use a while loop, which will continue running until the condition is false. Be careful, though. It is very easy to create an infinite loop, meaning your condition is always true so the loop never stops.

a=20;
b=70;
while a~=60 && b~=40
    ...
end