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+## Copyright (C) 1996 Kurt Hornik
+##
+## 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 {Function File} {} strvcat (@var{s_1}, @dots{}, @var{s_n})
+## Return a matrix containing the strings (and cell-strings) 
+## @var{s_1}, @dots{}, @var{s_n} as
+## its rows.  Each string is padded with blanks in order to form a valid
+## matrix.  Unlike @var{str2mat}, empty strings are ignored.
+## @seealso{strcat, str2mat}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at>
+## Adapted-By: jwe
+## Modified: Paul Kienzle <pkienzle@kienzle.powernet.co.uk> converted
+##           str2mat to strvcat.  Same function except that strvcat
+##           ignores empty strings.
+## Modified by Alois Schloegl <a.schloegl@ieee.org> Mar 2005
+##	     added support for cell-strings 
+## Modifed by David Bateman for NDArrays
+
+function retval = strvcat (varargin)
+
+  if (nargin == 0)
+    usage ("strvcat (s1, ...)");
+  endif
+
+  nr = zeros (nargin, 1);
+  nc = zeros (nargin, 1);
+  K = 0; 
+  nd = ndims (varargin {1});
+  sz = size (varargin {1});
+  for k = 1 : nargin
+    s = varargin{k};
+    if (iscell (s))
+      for k1 = 1:length(s)
+	K = K+1;
+	nr(K) = size (s{k1}, 1);
+	nc(K) = size (s{k1}, 2);
+	if (ndims (s{k1}) != nd)
+	  error ("strvcat: dimension mismatch");
+	else
+	  if (any (sz(3:nd) != size (s{k1}) (3:nd)))
+	    error ("strvcat: dimension mismatch");
+	  endif
+	endif
+      endfor
+    else
+      K = K + 1;
+      nr(K) = size (s, 1);
+      nc(K) = size (s, 2);
+      if (ndims (s) != nd)
+	error ("strvcat: dimension mismatch");
+      else
+	if (any (sz(3:nd) != size (s) (3:nd)))
+	  error ("strvcat: dimension mismatch");
+	endif
+      endif
+    endif
+  endfor
+
+  sz(1) = sum (nr);
+  sz(2) = max (nc);
+  retval = char (ones (sz) * toascii (" "));
+
+  idx = cell(nd,1);
+  for k = 3 : nd;
+    idx {k} = sz {k};
+  endfor
+
+  K = 0;
+  row_offset = 0;
+  for k = 1 : nargin
+    s = varargin{k};
+    if (iscell (s))
+      for k1 = 1:length(s)
+	K = K + 1;
+	idx{1} = [row_offset + 1 : row_offset + nr(k)];
+	idx{2} = [1 : nc(K)];
+	retval(idx{:}) = char(s{k1});
+	row_offset = row_offset + size (s{k1}, 1);
+      endfor
+    else
+      K = K + 1;
+      if (nc(K) > 0)
+    	retval ((row_offset + 1) : (row_offset + nr(K)), 1:nc(K)) = char(s);
+      endif
+      row_offset = row_offset + nr(K);
+    endif
+  endfor
+
+endfunction
+
+%!shared s1,s2,s3,s4,c
+%! s1 = "quick"; s2 = "brown"; s3 = "fox"; s4 = ["quick";"brown";"fox  "];
+%! c{1} = s1; c{2} = s2; c{3} = s3;
+%!assert(strvcat(s1,s2,s3),s4)
+%!assert(strvcat(c),s4)
+%!assert(strvcat(s4,s4),[s4;s4]);