Setting a starting distance value in pdist

Hi!

I'm using pdist to find the distance between two matrices. Those matrices change for every run of the program.

My question here is, what would be a starting value for the distance value, such that that value will be considered the minimum distance value.

After I run the first iteration, I want to compare the new distance result with that initial minimum distance set earlier, such that, if the new distance is smaller, it will be considered the minimum, and then the program will go to the next iteration.

The program will stop if the new calculated distance is not less than the minimum.

So, the issue here is, what would be the starting minimum for the distance, provided that for instance, after running one iteration of the program, a value I obtained for pdist was 50.5292.

Thanks.

Answer 1

[Adam]

Can't you just initialise to Inf? Am I missing some subtlety in the question?

[med-sweng]

Thanks for your reply. What do you just mean by "Inf"?