MATLAB: Empty Matrix

empty matrixmatrix manipulation

I am wondering if there is a way to convert an empty matrix to zero without doing an if statement testing for isempty?

My problem is comparing two values when the find function returns an empty matrix for one of them.

I would like the answer c to be 1 , not an empty matrix

A = ones(5, 1)
B = zeros(5, 1)
a = find(A, 1, 'first')
b = find(B, 1, 'first')
c = a > b
c =
     Empty matrix: 0-by-1

c = isempty(a) || isempty(b) || a>b

cat()

vertcat()

One way of doing this is to pass an empty argument, e.g., mySum([], 2) or mySum(2, []). So, you can add the following conditions:

function myVal = mySum(a, b)
 if isempty(a)
     a = 1;
 end
 if isempty(b)
     b = 20;
 end
 myVal = a+b;
end