Finding the closest number to the average in an array

The script should assume a vector A is assigned in the command window. The script should create a scalar x where x is the number in A that is closest to the average. Commands mean, median, mode, sum, max, or min are not allowed for this challenge.

An example execution is as follows:

>> A = [-1 -0.5 0 1 4];
>> script24_drew_Murray
x =
   1

I tried doing the problem using the following script...

total = 0;
for jj = length(A);
    for ii = A;
        total = (total + ii);
    end
    A_avg = total/jj;
end

for kk = 1:length(A);
    diffr = abs(A(kk) - A_avg);
    sortedA = sort(A);
    mindiff = abs(sortedA(2)-sortedA(1));
    if diffr < mindiff;
        x = A(kk)
    end
end

This worked for the example given. But I tried running the script with a different array A = [-4 -0.5 1 200] and no result was produced from the script. I am not sure why it works for some arrays and not for others.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Pretty close, but try it this way:

A = [-4 -0.5 1 200]
% First find the total
total = 0;
for ii = A;
  total = total + ii;
end
% Now find the mean.
A_avg = total/length(A);
% Now find out the delta to the mean.
diffr = abs(A - A_avg)
% Now scan to find which delta is smallest.
minDiff = inf;
for kk = 1:length(diffr);
  if diffr(kk) < minDiff;
    x = A(kk);
    minDiff = diffr(kk);
  end
end
fprintf('%.1f is closest to the mean of %.4f\n', ...
  x, A_avg);