new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/optimization/optimget.m
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2008 Jaroslav Hajek <highegg@gmail.com>
+##
+## 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} {} optimget (@var{options}, @var{parname})
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} optimget (@var{options}, @var{parname}, @var{default})
+## Used to retrieve a specific option from a structure created by 
+## @code{optimset}. If @var{parname} is not a field of the @var{options}
+## structure, return @var{default} if supplied, otherwise return an 
+## empty matrix.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function retval = optimget (options, parname, default)
+
+  if (isfield (options, parname))
+    retval = options.(parname);
+  elseif (nargin > 2)
+    retval = default;
+  else
+    retval = [];
+  endif
+
+endfunction
+