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+## Copyright (C) 2008 Michael Goffioul
+##
+## 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} {@var{h} =} gcbo ()
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {[@var{h}, @var{fig}] =} gcbo ()
+## Return a handle to the object whose callback is currently
+## executing. If no callback is executing, this function returns the
+## empty matrix. This handle is obtained from the root object property
+## "CallbackObject".
+##
+## Additionally return the handle of the figure containing the
+## object whose callback is currently executing. If no callback is
+## executing, the second output is also set to the empty matrix.
+##
+##@seealso{gcf, gca, gcbf}
+##@end deftypefn
+
+function [h, fig] = gcbo ()
+
+  h = get (0, "callbackobject");
+  fig = [];
+
+  if (! isempty (h) && nargout > 1)
+    fig = ancestor (h, "figure");
+  endif
+
+endfunction