--- a/scripts/ChangeLog
+++ b/scripts/ChangeLog
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 	* general/idivide.m: New function.
 
+	* miscellaneous/namelengthmax.m: New function.
+
 2008-03-21  David Bateman  <dbateman@free.fr>
 
 	* specfun/reallog.m, specfun/realpow.m, specfun/realsqrt.m: New

--- a/scripts/miscellaneous/Makefile.in
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/Makefile.in
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
   fileattrib.m fileparts.m flops.m fullfile.m getfield.m gunzip.m \
   gzip.m inputname.m ismac.m ispc.m isunix.m license.m list_primes.m ls.m \
   ls_command.m menu.m mex.m mexext.m mkoctfile.m movefile.m \
-  news.m orderfields.m pack.m paren.m parseparams.m \
+  namelengthmax.m news.m orderfields.m pack.m paren.m parseparams.m \
   run.m semicolon.m setfield.m single.m substruct.m swapbytes.m tar.m \
   tempdir.m tempname.m texas_lotto.m unix.m unpack.m untar.m \
   unzip.m ver.m version.m warning_ids.m what.m xor.m zip.m

new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/namelengthmax.m
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2008  David Bateman
+##
+## 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} {} namelengthmax ()
+## Returns the matlab compatible maximum variable name length. Octave is
+## capable of storing strings up to 
+## @iftex
+## @tex
+## $2^{31} - 1$
+## @end tex
+## @end iftext
+## @ifnottex
+## @code{2 ^ 31 - 1}
+## @end ifnottex
+## in length. However for matlab compatibility all variable, function
+## and structure field names should be shorter than the length supplied by
+## @code{namelengthmax}. In particular variables stored to a matlab file
+## format will have their names truncated to this length.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function n = namelengthmax ()
+  n = 63;
+endfunction