find the position of en element if you have the increment

How i will find mathematically what is the position of the element correspounding z=-2 it is 21 but I cant find it mathematically

p=[4.4 5.5 6.6 8];
h=[2 5 3 6];
x=[0:0.4:40];
z=[0:-0.1:-16]
vel=zeros(numel(z),numel(x));
vel(1:21,:)=4.4;
vel(22:71,:)=5.5;
vel(72:101,:)=6.6;
vel(102:161,:)=8;

[Adam]

You need to give more explanation. I'm not seeing how -4.4 is at position 21 of anything there. It is at position 12 in x and 45 in z, as far as I can see.

[Stephen23]

What are p, h, and vel supposed to be used for?

[F.O]

Hei Adam ,Actually ,sometimes I am very bad in asking and sorry for that. the thing is that every value in p corresspound to the values in h and I wanted to know how to get the position when z equals minus every value in h vector

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

You need to compare the difference against a (carefully selected) tolerance:

>> z = 0:-0.1:-16; % do not use square brackets!
>> tol = 0.00001;
>> val = -4.4;
>> idx = find(abs(z-val)<=tol)
idx =  45
>>

Read more here:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/57444-faq-why-is-0-3-0-2-0-1-not-equal-to-zero

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/41536-why-is-2-24-10-22-4-not-equal-to-0

Answer 2

[James Tursa]

You need to be careful how you search for this element. Because of the way the colon operator works with floating point fractions, you cannot guarantee that values you think might obviously be in the vector are actually there exactly. E.g.,

>> z=[0:-0.1:-16];
>> find(z==-4.4)
ans =
    45
>> num2strexact(-4.4)
ans =
-4.4000000000000003552713678800500929355621337890625
>> num2strexact(z(45))
ans =
-4.4000000000000003552713678800500929355621337890625
>> find(z==-4.1)
ans =
   Empty matrix: 1-by-0
>> num2strexact(-4.1)
ans =
-4.0999999999999996447286321199499070644378662109375
>> num2strexact(z(42))
ans =
-4.10000000000000053290705182007513940334320068359375

So, for the -4.4 value the colon operator happen to pick the same "closest" IEEE double value that you get when you type the value at the command line. But this didn't happen for the -4.1 value. So to do these types of operations in your code, you need to account for this effect and either use tolerances or use some type of integer range that you know can be searched exactly.