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+## Copyright (C) 2006 Sylvain Pelissier
+##
+## This file is part of Octave.
+##
+## Octave is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
+## under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
+## the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
+## any later version.
+##
+## Octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
+## WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+## MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
+## General Public License for more details.
+##
+## You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
+## along with Octave; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
+## Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+## 02110-1301, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {@var{entries} =} zip (@var{zipfile},@var{files})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{entries} =} zip (@var{zipfile},@var{files},@var{rootdir})
+## Compress the list of files and/or directories specified in @var{files} 
+## into the archive @var{zipfiles} in the same directory. If @var{rootdir} 
+## is defined the @var{files} is located relative to @var{rootdir} rather 
+## than the current directory
+## @seealso{unzip,tar}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: Sylvain Pelissier <sylvain.pelissier@gmail.com>
+
+function entries = zip (zipfile, files, rootdir)
+
+  if (nargin != 3)
+    rootdir = "./";
+  endif
+
+  if (nargin == 2 || nargin == 3)
+    rootdir = tilde_expand (rootdir);
+
+    if (ischar (files))
+      files = cellstr (files);
+    endif
+
+    if (ischar (zipfile) && iscellstr (files))
+
+      cmd = sprintf ("cd %s; zip -r %s/%s %s", rootdir, pwd (), zipfile,
+		     sprintf (" %s", files{:}));
+
+      [status, output] = system (cmd);
+
+      if (status == 0)
+	if (nargout > 0)
+	  cmd = sprintf ("unzip -Z -1 %s", zipfile);
+	  [status, entries] = system (cmd);
+	  if (status == 0)
+	    if (entries(end) == "\n")
+	      entries(end) = [];
+	    endif
+            entries = cellstr (split (entries, "\n"))';
+	  else
+	    error ("zip: zipinfo failed with exit status = %d", status);
+	  endif
+	endif
+      else
+	error ("zip: zip failed with exit status = %d", status);
+      endif
+    
+    else
+      error ("zip: expecting all arguments to be character strings");
+    endif
+
+  else
+    print_usage ();
+  endif
+
+endfunction