new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/tempdir.m
@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2003 John W. Eaton
+##
+## 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, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
+## 02111-1307, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Built-in Function} {[@var{dir}, @var{name}, @var{ext}, @var{ver}] =} fullfile (@var{filename})
+## Return the directory, name, extension, and version components of
+## @var{filename}.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function dirname = tempdir ()
+
+  dirname = getenv ("TMPDIR");
+  if (length (dirname) == 0)
+    dirname = P_tmpdir;
+  endif
+
+endfunction