Consider this modification to Grumdrig's answer above. Many times you'll find that floating point imprecision can cause problems. I'm using doubles in the version below, but you can easily change to floats. The important part is that it uses an epsilon to handle the "slop". In addition, you'll many times want to know WHERE the intersection happened, or if it happened at all. If the returned t is < 0.0 or > 1.0, no collision occurred. However, even if no collision occurred, many times you'll want to know where the closest point on the segment to P is, and thus I use qx and qy to return this location.

double PointSegmentDistanceSquared( double px, double py,
                                    double p1x, double p1y,
                                    double p2x, double p2y,
                                    double& t,
                                    double& qx, double& qy)
{
    static const double kMinSegmentLenSquared = 0.00000001;  // adjust to suit.  If you use float, you'll probably want something like 0.000001f
    static const double kEpsilon = 1.0E-14;  // adjust to suit.  If you use floats, you'll probably want something like 1E-7f
    double dx = p2x - p1x;
    double dy = p2y - p1y;
    double dp1x = px - p1x;
    double dp1y = py - p1y;
    const double segLenSquared = (dx * dx) + (dy * dy);
    if (segLenSquared >= -kMinSegmentLenSquared && segLenSquared <= kMinSegmentLenSquared)
    {
        // segment is a point.
        qx = p1x;
        qy = p1y;
        t = 0.0;
        return ((dp1x * dp1x) + (dp1y * dp1y));
    }
    else
    {
        // Project a line from p to the segment [p1,p2].  By considering the line
        // extending the segment, parameterized as p1 + (t * (p2 - p1)),
        // we find projection of point p onto the line. 
        // It falls where t = [(p - p1) . (p2 - p1)] / |p2 - p1|^2
        t = ((dp1x * dx) + (dp1y * dy)) / segLenSquared;
        if (t < kEpsilon)
        {
            // intersects at or to the "left" of first segment vertex (p1x, p1y).  If t is approximately 0.0, then
            // intersection is at p1.  If t is less than that, then there is no intersection (i.e. p is not within
            // the 'bounds' of the segment)
            if (t > -kEpsilon)
            {
                // intersects at 1st segment vertex
                t = 0.0;
            }
            // set our 'intersection' point to p1.
            qx = p1x;
            qy = p1y;
            // Note: If you wanted the ACTUAL intersection point of where the projected lines would intersect if
            // we were doing PointLineDistanceSquared, then qx would be (p1x + (t * dx)) and qy would be (p1y + (t * dy)).
        }
        else if (t > (1.0 - kEpsilon))
        {
            // intersects at or to the "right" of second segment vertex (p2x, p2y).  If t is approximately 1.0, then
            // intersection is at p2.  If t is greater than that, then there is no intersection (i.e. p is not within
            // the 'bounds' of the segment)
            if (t < (1.0 + kEpsilon))
            {
                // intersects at 2nd segment vertex
                t = 1.0;
            }
            // set our 'intersection' point to p2.
            qx = p2x;
            qy = p2y;
            // Note: If you wanted the ACTUAL intersection point of where the projected lines would intersect if
            // we were doing PointLineDistanceSquared, then qx would be (p1x + (t * dx)) and qy would be (p1y + (t * dy)).
        }
        else
        {
            // The projection of the point to the point on the segment that is perpendicular succeeded and the point
            // is 'within' the bounds of the segment.  Set the intersection point as that projected point.
            qx = p1x + (t * dx);
            qy = p1y + (t * dy);
        }
        // return the squared distance from p to the intersection point.  Note that we return the squared distance
        // as an optimization because many times you just need to compare relative distances and the squared values
        // works fine for that.  If you want the ACTUAL distance, just take the square root of this value.
        double dpqx = px - qx;
        double dpqy = py - qy;
        return ((dpqx * dpqx) + (dpqy * dpqy));
    }
}

在数学

它使用线段的参数描述，并将点投影到线段定义的直线中。当参数在线段内从0到1时，如果投影在这个范围之外，我们计算到相应端点的距离，而不是法线到线段的直线。

Clear["Global`*"];
 distance[{start_, end_}, pt_] := 
   Module[{param},
   param = ((pt - start).(end - start))/Norm[end - start]^2; (*parameter. the "."
                                                       here means vector product*)

   Which[
    param < 0, EuclideanDistance[start, pt],                 (*If outside bounds*)
    param > 1, EuclideanDistance[end, pt],
    True, EuclideanDistance[pt, start + param (end - start)] (*Normal distance*)
    ]
   ];  

策划的结果:

Plot3D[distance[{{0, 0}, {1, 0}}, {xp, yp}], {xp, -1, 2}, {yp, -1, 2}]

画出比截断距离更近的点:

等高线图:

如果它是一条无限大的直线，而不是一条线段，最简单的方法是这样(在ruby中)，其中mx + b是直线，(x1, y1)是已知的点

(y1 - mx1 - b).abs / Math.sqrt(m**2 + 1)

快速实现http://paulbourke.net/geometry/pointlineplane/source.c

    static func magnitude(p1: CGPoint, p2: CGPoint) -> CGFloat {
        let vector = CGPoint(x: p2.x - p1.x, y: p2.y - p1.y)
        return sqrt(pow(vector.x, 2) + pow(vector.y, 2))
    }

    /// http://paulbourke.net/geometry/pointlineplane/
    /// http://paulbourke.net/geometry/pointlineplane/source.c
    static func pointDistanceToLine(point: CGPoint, lineStart: CGPoint, lineEnd: CGPoint) -> CGFloat? {

        let lineMag = magnitude(p1: lineEnd, p2: lineStart)
        let u = (((point.x - lineStart.x) * (lineEnd.x - lineStart.x)) +
                ((point.y - lineStart.y) * (lineEnd.y - lineStart.y))) /
                (lineMag * lineMag)

        if u < 0 || u > 1 {
            // closest point does not fall within the line segment
            return nil
        }

        let intersectionX = lineStart.x + u * (lineEnd.x - lineStart.x)
        let intersectionY = lineStart.y + u * (lineEnd.y - lineStart.y)

        return magnitude(p1: point, p2: CGPoint(x: intersectionX, y: intersectionY))
    }

该算法基于求出指定直线与包含指定点的正交直线的交点，并计算其距离。在线段的情况下，我们必须检查交点是否在线段的点之间，如果不是这样，则最小距离是指定点与线段的一个端点之间的距离。这是一个c#实现。

Double Distance(Point a, Point b)
{
    double xdiff = a.X - b.X, ydiff = a.Y - b.Y;
    return Math.Sqrt((long)xdiff * xdiff + (long)ydiff * ydiff);
}

Boolean IsBetween(double x, double a, double b)
{
    return ((a <= b && x >= a && x <= b) || (a > b && x <= a && x >= b));
}

Double GetDistance(Point pt, Point pt1, Point pt2, out Point intersection)
{
    Double a, x, y, R;

    if (pt1.X != pt2.X) {
        a = (double)(pt2.Y - pt1.Y) / (pt2.X - pt1.X);
        x = (a * (pt.Y - pt1.Y) + a * a * pt1.X + pt.X) / (a * a + 1);
        y = a * x + pt1.Y - a * pt1.X; }
    else { x = pt1.X;  y = pt.Y; }

    if (IsBetween(x, pt1.X, pt2.X) && IsBetween(y, pt1.Y, pt2.Y)) {
        intersection = new Point((int)x, (int)y);
        R = Distance(intersection, pt); }
    else {
        double d1 = Distance(pt, pt1), d2 = Distance(pt, pt2);
        if (d1 < d2) { intersection = pt1; R = d1; }
        else { intersection = pt2; R = d2; }}

    return R;
}

用t-sql编码

点为(@px， @py)，线段从(@ax， @ay)到(@bx， @by)

create function fn_sqr (@NumberToSquare decimal(18,10)) 
returns decimal(18,10)
as 
begin
    declare @Result decimal(18,10)
    set @Result = @NumberToSquare * @NumberToSquare
    return @Result
end
go

create function fn_Distance(@ax decimal (18,10) , @ay decimal (18,10), @bx decimal(18,10),  @by decimal(18,10)) 
returns decimal(18,10)
as
begin
    declare @Result decimal(18,10)
    set @Result = (select dbo.fn_sqr(@ax - @bx) + dbo.fn_sqr(@ay - @by) )
    return @Result
end
go

create function fn_DistanceToSegmentSquared(@px decimal(18,10), @py decimal(18,10), @ax decimal(18,10), @ay decimal(18,10), @bx decimal(18,10), @by decimal(18,10)) 
returns decimal(18,10)
as 
begin
    declare @l2 decimal(18,10)
    set @l2 = (select dbo.fn_Distance(@ax, @ay, @bx, @by))
    if @l2 = 0
        return dbo.fn_Distance(@px, @py, @ax, @ay)
    declare @t decimal(18,10)
    set @t = ((@px - @ax) * (@bx - @ax) + (@py - @ay) * (@by - @ay)) / @l2
    if (@t < 0) 
        return dbo.fn_Distance(@px, @py, @ax, @ay);
    if (@t > 1) 
        return dbo.fn_Distance(@px, @py, @bx, @by);
    return dbo.fn_Distance(@px, @py,  @ax + @t * (@bx - @ax),  @ay + @t * (@by - @ay))
end
go

create function fn_DistanceToSegment(@px decimal(18,10), @py decimal(18,10), @ax decimal(18,10), @ay decimal(18,10), @bx decimal(18,10), @by decimal(18,10)) 
returns decimal(18,10)
as 
begin
    return sqrt(dbo.fn_DistanceToSegmentSquared(@px, @py , @ax , @ay , @bx , @by ))
end
go

--example execution for distance from a point at (6,1) to line segment that runs from (4,2) to (2,1)
select dbo.fn_DistanceToSegment(6, 1, 4, 2, 2, 1) 
--result = 2.2360679775

--example execution for distance from a point at (-3,-2) to line segment that runs from (0,-2) to (-2,1)
select dbo.fn_DistanceToSegment(-3, -2, 0, -2, -2, 1) 
--result = 2.4961508830

--example execution for distance from a point at (0,-2) to line segment that runs from (0,-2) to (-2,1)
select dbo.fn_DistanceToSegment(0,-2, 0, -2, -2, 1) 
--result = 0.0000000000