# Copyright (C) 1995 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.

function retval = beta (a, b)
  
# usage: beta (a, b)
#
# Returns the beta function beta(a,b) = gamma(a) * gamma(b) / gamma(a+b)
# of a and b.

# Written by KH (Kurt.Hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at) on Jun 13, 1993

  if (nargin != 2)
    usage ("beta (a, b)");
  endif

  retval = exp (lgamma (a) + lgamma (b) - lgamma (a+b));

endfunction