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+## Copyright (C) 2000  Etienne Grossmann
+##
+## 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, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+## 02110-1301, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Built-in Function} {} [@var{k1},..., @var{v1}] =
+## @code{setfield (@var{s}, 'k1',..., 'v1')} sets field members in a structure
+##
+## @example
+## @group
+## oo(1,1).f0= 1;
+## oo = setfield(oo,@{1,2@},'fd',@{3@},'b', 6);
+## oo(1,2).fd(3).b == 6
+## @result{} ans = 1
+## @end group
+## @end example
+##
+## Note that this function could be written
+##
+## @example
+##          i1= @{1,2@}; i2= 'fd'; i3= @{3@}; i4= 'b';
+##          oo( i1@{:@} ).( i2 )( i3@{:@} ).( i4 ) == 6;
+## @end example
+## @seealso{getfield, rmfield, isfield, isstruct, fieldnames, struct}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author:  Etienne Grossmann <etienne@cs.uky.edu>
+
+function obj = setfield (obj, varargin)
+   field = "obj";
+   for i = 1:nargin-2
+     v = varargin{i};
+     if (iscell (v))
+       sep = "(";
+       for j = 1:length (v)
+	 field = sprintf ("%s%s%s", field, sep, num2str (v{j}));
+         sep = ",";
+       endfor
+       field = sprintf ("%s)", field);
+     else
+       field = sprintf ("%s.%s", field, v);
+     endif
+   endfor
+   val = varargin{nargin-1};
+   eval (sprintf ("%s=val;", field));
+endfunction
+
+%!test
+%! x.a = "hello";
+%! x = setfield(x,"b","world");
+%! y = struct('a','hello','b','world');
+%! assert(x,y);
+%!test
+%! oo(1,1).f0= 1;
+%! oo = setfield(oo,{1,2},'fd',{3},'b', 6);
+%! assert (oo(1,2).fd(3).b, 6)