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+## Copyright (C) 2008 David Bateman
+##
+## 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} {} refresh ()
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {} refresh (@var{h})
+## Refresh a figure, forcing it to be redrawn. Called without an
+## argument the current figure is redrawn, otherwise the figure pointed
+## to by @var{h} is redrawn.
+## @seealso{drawnow}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function refresh (h)
+
+  if (nargin == 1)
+    if (!ishandle (h) || !strcmp (get (h, "type"), "figure"))
+      error ("refresh: expecting argument to be a valid figure handle");
+    endif
+  elseif (nargin > 1)
+    print_usage ();
+  else
+    h = gcf ();
+  endif
+
+  set(h,"__modified__", "on")
+  drawnow ();
+endfunction