new file mode 100644
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/general/cellidx.m
@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2000, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
+##               Auburn University.  All rights reserved.
+##
+## This file is part of Octave.
+##
+## Octave program 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 program 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{idxvec}, @var{errmsg}] =} cellidx (@var{listvar}, @var{strlist})
+## Return indices of string entries in @var{listvar} that match strings
+## in @var{strlist}.
+##
+## Both @var{listvar} and @var{strlist} may be passed as strings or
+## string matrices.  If they are passed as string matrices, each entry
+## is processed by @code{deblank} prior to searching for the entries.
+##
+## The first output is the vector of indices in @var{listvar}.
+##
+## If @var{strlist} contains a string not in @var{listvar}, then
+## an error message is returned in @var{errmsg}.  If only one output
+## argument is requested, then @var{cellidx} prints @var{errmsg} to the
+## screen and exits with an error.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function [idxvec,errmsg]  = cellidx (listvar, strlist)
+
+  if (nargin != 2)
+    print_usage ();
+  endif
+
+  if (ischar (strlist))
+    tmp = strlist;
+    strlist = {};
+    for kk = 1:rows(tmp)
+      strlist{kk} = deblank (tmp(kk,:));
+    endfor
+  endif
+
+  if (ischar (listvar))
+    tmp = listvar;
+    listvar = {};
+    for kk = 1:rows(tmp)
+      listvar{kk} = deblank (tmp(kk,:));
+    endfor
+  endif
+
+  ## initialize size of idxvec (for premature return)
+  idxvec = zeros (length(strlist), 1);
+
+  errmsg = "";
+  if (! iscellstr (listvar))
+    errmsg = "listvar must be a list of strings";
+  elseif (! iscellstr (strlist))
+    errmsg = "strlist must be a list of strings";
+  endif
+
+  if (length (errmsg))
+    if (nargout < 2)
+      error (errmsg);
+    else
+      return;
+    endif
+  endif
+
+  nsigs = length(listvar);
+  for idx = 1:length(strlist)
+    signame = strlist{idx};
+    for jdx = 1:nsigs
+      if (strcmp (signame, listvar{jdx}) )
+	if (idxvec(idx) != 0)
+	  warning ("Duplicate signal name %s (%d,%d)\n",
+		   listvar{jdx}, jdx, idxvec(idx));
+	else
+	  idxvec(idx) = jdx;
+	endif
+      endif
+    endfor
+    if (idxvec(idx) == 0)
+      errmsg = sprintf ("Did not find %s", signame);
+      if (nargout == 1)
+	error (errmsg);
+      else
+	break;
+      endif
+    endif
+  endfor
+
+endfunction