Calculating absolute differences between two angles

Question

I have two angles a and b, I want to calculate the absolute difference between both angles. Examples

>> absDiffDeg(360,5)
ans = 5
>> absDiffDeg(-5,5)
ans = 10
>> absDiffDeg(5,-5)
ans = 10

Answer 1

Normalize the difference, abs operation is not necessary because mod(x,y) takes the sign of y.

normDeg = mod(a-b,360);

This will be a number between 0-360, but we want the smallest angle which is between 0-180. Easiest way to get this is

absDiffDeg = min(360-normDeg, normDeg);

Answer 2

How about unsing unwrap ? Here is a try:

absDiffDeg = @(a,b) abs(diff(unwrap([a,b]/180*pi)*180/pi));

Best,