It depends what Matlab data-type you consider to be the equivalent of a Python tuple. I tend to think of cell arrays as the equivalent of a tuple because cells can store sequences of mixed types, but matrix form is generally the form in Matlab that will support most mathematical operations you might want to do. Below, I generate a set of pairs in both matrix and cell array form.
n=4;
pairMatrix=[0:n-1;1:n].';
pairCell=num2cell(pairMatrix,2)
Overall, I am trying to return a list of pairs of indices in my matrix and then take the distance between each pair.
You mean, the Euclidean distances when each pair is viewed as a 2D coordinate? If you have the Statistics Toolbox, then this can be done using pdist2,
>> pdist2(pairMatrix,pairMatrix)
ans =
0 1.4142 2.8284 4.2426
1.4142 0 1.4142 2.8284
2.8284 1.4142 0 1.4142
4.2426 2.8284 1.4142 0
