MATLAB Extracting Column Number

Question

My goal is to create a random, 20 by 5 array of integers, sort them by increasing order from top to bottom and from left to right, and then calculate the mean in each of the resulting 20 rows. This gives me a 1 by 20 array of the means. I then have to find the column whose mean is closest to 0. Here is my code so far:

RandomArray= randi([-100 100],20,5);
NewArray=reshape(sort(RandomArray(:)),20,5);
MeanArray= mean(transpose(NewArray(:,:)))
X=min(abs(x-0))

How can I store the column number whose mean is closest to 0 into a variable? I'm only about a month into coding so this probably seems like a very simple problem. Thanks

Answer 1

You're almost there. All you need is a find:

RandomArray= randi([-100 100],20,5);
NewArray=reshape(sort(RandomArray(:)),20,5);
% MeanArray= mean(transpose(NewArray(:,:))) %// gives means per row, not column
ColNum = find(abs(mean(NewArray,1))==min(abs(mean(NewArray,1)))); %// gives you the column number of the minimum
MeanColumn = RandomArray(:,ColNum);

find will give you the index of the entry where abs(mean(NewArray)), i.e. the absolute values of the mean per column equals the minimum of that same array, thus the index where the mean of the column is closest to 0.

Note that you don't need your MeanArray, as it transposes (which can be done by NewArray.', and then gives the mean per column, i.e. your old rows. I chucked everything in the find statement.

As suggested in the comment by Matthias W. it's faster to use the second output of min directly instead of a find:

RandomArray= randi([-100 100],20,5);
NewArray=reshape(sort(RandomArray(:)),20,5);
% MeanArray= mean(transpose(NewArray(:,:))) %// gives means per row, not column
[~,ColNum] = min(abs(mean(NewArray,1)));
MeanColumn = RandomArray(:,ColNum);