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+## Copyright (C) 2005 Søren Hauberg
+## 
+## This 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 2 of the License, or
+## (at your option) any later version.
+## 
+## This 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 this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+## Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} tar (@var{filename}, @var{files})
+## @deftypefnx{Function File} tar (@var{filename}, @var{files}, @var{root})
+## @deftypefnx{Function File} @var{entries} = tar (...)
+## Packs the files listed in @var{files} into @var{filename} using
+## the @code{tar} program. @var{files} must either be a string or a cell
+## array of strings containing the files to be packed. The extension of
+## @var{filename} determines if the tar-file is also to be compressed
+## (if no extension is present @code{.tar} will be appended to @var{filename})
+## @table @asis
+## @item @code{.tar}
+##   No compression.
+## @item @code{.tar.gz} or @code{.tgz}
+##   The tar-file will be compressed using @code{gzip}.
+## @item @code{tar.bz}, @code{tar.bz2}, @code{tbz}, or @code{tbz2}
+##   The tar-file will be compressed using @code{bzip2}.
+## @end table
+## The optional argument @var{root} changes the relative path of @var{files}
+## from the current directory.
+##
+## If an output argument is requested the filename entries in the archive
+## is returned.
+## 
+## @end deftypefn
+## @seealso{untar, gzip, gunzip, zip, unzip}
+
+## Author: Søren Hauberg <hauberg at gmail dot com>
+
+function entries = tar(filename, files, root)
+    if (nargin < 2 || nargin > 3)
+        print_usage("tar");
+    elseif (nargin == 2)
+        root = ".";
+    endif
+    
+    supported_extensions = {"tar", "tar.gz", "tgz", "tar.bz", "tar.bz2", "tbz", "tbz2"};
+
+    ## Test type of input
+    if (ischar(files))
+        files = {files};
+    endif
+    if (!ischar(filename) || !iscellstr(files) || !ischar(root))
+        error("All arguments must be strings.\n");
+    endif
+    
+    ## Get extension of filename
+    dots = find(filename == ".");
+    for dot = dots
+        curext = filename(dot+1:end);
+        if (any(strcmp(curext, supported_extensions)))
+            ext = curext;
+            break;
+        endif
+    endfor
+
+    ## If no extension was found default to "tar"
+    if (!exist("ext", "var"))
+        filename = sprintf("%s.tar", filename);
+        ext = "tar";
+    endif
+
+    ## Determine which flags to use with tar
+    switch (ext)
+        case {"tar"} flag = "";
+        case {"tar.gz", "tgz"} flag = "z";
+        case {"tar.bz", "tar.bz2", "tbz", "tbz2"} flag = "j";
+    endswitch
+
+    ## Call tar
+    [output, status] = system(["tar -" flag "cvf " filename " -C " root sprintf(" %s", files{:})]);
+    if (status != 0)
+        error("tar returned the following error: %s\n", output);
+    endif
+    
+    if (nargout)
+        entries = split(output(1:end-1), "\n");
+    endif
+endfunction