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+## Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 John W. Eaton
+##
+## 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, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
+## 02111-1307, USA.
+
+## usage: median (a)
+##
+## For vector arguments, return the median of the values.
+##
+## For matrix arguments, return a row vector containing the median for
+## each column.
+##
+## See also: std, mean
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+function retval = median (a)
+
+  if (nargin != 1)
+    usage ("median (a)");
+  endif
+
+  [nr, nc] = size (a);
+  s = sort (a);
+  if (nr == 1 && nc > 0)
+    if (rem (nc, 2) == 0)
+      i = nc/2;
+      retval = (s (i) + s (i+1)) / 2;
+    else
+      i = ceil (nc/2);
+      retval = s (i);
+    endif
+  elseif (nr > 0 && nc > 0)
+    if (rem (nr, 2) == 0)
+      i = nr/2;
+      retval = (s (i,:) + s (i+1,:)) / 2;
+    else
+      i = ceil (nr/2);
+      retval = s (i,:);
+    endif
+  else
+    error ("median: invalid matrix argument");
+  endif
+
+endfunction