new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/deprecated/str2mat.m
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+## Copyright (C) 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
+##               Kurt Hornik
+##
+## 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 3 of the License, 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, see
+## <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} str2mat (@var{s_1}, @dots{}, @var{s_n})
+## Return a matrix containing the strings @var{s_1}, @dots{}, @var{s_n} as
+## its rows.  Each string is padded with blanks in order to form a valid
+## matrix.
+##
+## This function is modelled after @sc{Matlab}.  In Octave, you can create
+## a matrix of strings by @code{[@var{s_1}; @dots{}; @var{s_n}]} even if
+## the strings are not all the same length.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik@wu-wien.ac.at>
+## Adapted-By: jwe
+
+function retval = str2mat (varargin)
+  persistent warned = false;
+  if (! warned)
+    warned = true;
+    warning ("Octave:deprecated-function",
+             "str2mat is obsolete and will be removed from a future version of Octave; please use char instead.");
+  endif
+
+  retval = char (varargin{:});
+
+endfunction