## Copyright (C) 2006-2012 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 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} {@var{val} =} ls_command ()
## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{old_val} =} ls_command (@var{new_val})
## Query or set the shell command used by Octave's @code{ls} command.
## @seealso{ls}
## @end deftypefn

## Author: jwe

function old_cmd = ls_command (cmd)

  global __ls_command__;

  if (isempty (__ls_command__))
    ## MinGW uses different ls_command
    if (ispc () && ! isunix ()
        && isempty (file_in_path (getenv ("PATH"), "ls")))
      __ls_command__ = "dir /D";
    else
      __ls_command__ = "ls -C";
    endif
  endif

  if (nargin == 0 || nargin == 1)

    old_cmd = __ls_command__;

    if (nargin == 1)
      if (ischar (cmd))
        __ls_command__ = cmd;
      else
        error ("ls_command: expecting argument to be a character string");
      endif
    endif

  endif

endfunction


%!test
%! cmd = ls_command ();
%! assert (ischar (cmd));
%! if (ispc () && ! isunix ())
%!   assert (cmd(1:3), "dir"); 
%! else
%!   assert (cmd(1:2), "ls"); 
%! endif