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+## Copyright (C) 2005 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, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+## 02110-1301, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Built-in Function} {} ishold
+## Return 1 if the next line will be added to the current plot, or 0 if
+## the plot device will be cleared before drawing the next line.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function retval = ishold ()
+
+  global __current_figure__;
+  global __hold_state__;
+
+  if (isempty (__current_figure__))
+    __current_figure__ = 1;
+  endif
+
+  if (isempty (__hold_state__))
+    __hold_state__ = false;
+  endif
+
+  if (length (__hold_state__) < __current_figure__)
+    __hold_state__(__current_figure__) = false;
+  endif
+
+  if (nargin == 0)
+    retval = __hold_state__(__current_figure__);
+  else
+    usage ("ishold ()");
+  endif
+
+endfunction