--- a/scripts/general/module.mk
+++ b/scripts/general/module.mk
@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@
   general/postpad.m \
   general/prepad.m \
   general/profile.m \
+  general/profshow.m \
   general/quadgk.m \
   general/quadl.m \
   general/quadv.m \

--- a/scripts/general/profile.m
+++ b/scripts/general/profile.m
@@ -100,4 +100,5 @@
 %! profile ('resume');
 %! C = sqrtm (A);
 %! profile ('off');
-%! T = profile ('info')
+%! T = profile ('info');
+%! profshow (T);

new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/general/profshow.m
@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2011 Daniel Kraft
+##
+## 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} {} profshow (@var{data})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {} profshow (@var{data}, @var{n})
+## Show flat profiler results.
+##
+## This command prints out profiler data as a flat profile.  @var{data} is the
+## structure returned by @code{profile ('info')}.  If @var{n} is given, it
+## specifies the number of functions to show in the profile; functions are
+## sorted in descending order by total time spent in them.  If there are more
+## than @var{n} included in the profile, those will not be shown.  @var{n}
+## defaults to 20.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Built-in profiler.
+## Author: Daniel Kraft <d@domob.eu>
+
+function profshow (data, n)
+
+  if (nargin < 2)
+    n = 20;
+  endif
+
+  m = length (data.FunctionTable);
+  n = min (n, m);
+
+  % We want to sort by times in descending order.  For this, extract the
+  % times to an array, then sort this, and use the resulting index permutation
+  % to print out our table.
+  times = NA (1, m);
+  for i = 1 : m
+    times(i) = - data.FunctionTable(i).TotalTime;
+  endfor
+  [~, p] = sort (times);
+
+  % For printing the table, find out the maximum length of a function name
+  % so that we can proportion the table accordingly.  Based on this,
+  % we can build the format used for printing table rows.
+  nameLen = length ('Function');
+  for i = 1 : n
+    nameLen = max (nameLen, length (data.FunctionTable(p(i)).FunctionName));
+  endfor
+  headerFormat = sprintf ('%%%ds %%12s %%12s\n', nameLen);
+  rowFormat = sprintf ('%%%ds%%13.3f%%13d\n', nameLen);
+
+  printf (headerFormat, 'Function', 'Time (s)', 'Calls');
+  for i = 1 : nameLen + 2 * 13
+    printf ('-');
+  endfor
+  printf ('\n');
+  for i = 1 : n
+    row = data.FunctionTable(p(i));
+    printf (rowFormat, row.FunctionName, row.TotalTime, row.NumCalls);
+  endfor
+
+endfunction
+
+%!demo
+%! profile ('on');
+%! A = rand (100);
+%! B = expm (A);
+%! profile ('off');
+%! T = profile ('info');
+%! profshow (T, 10);