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+## Copyright (C) 2006 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, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+## 02110-1301, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {[@var{old_cmd} =} ls_command (@var{cmd})
+## Set or return the shell command used by Octave's @code{ls} command.
+## The value of @var{cmd} must be a character string.
+## With no arguments, simply return the previous value.
+## @seealso{ls}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+function old_cmd = ls_command (cmd)
+
+  global __ls_command__;
+
+  if (isempty (__ls_command__))
+    ## FIXME -- ispc and isunix both return true for Cygwin.  Should they?
+    if (ispc () && ! isunix () && isempty (file_in_path (EXEC_PATH, "ls")))
+      __ls_command__ = "cmd /C dir /w";
+    else
+      __ls_command__ = "ls -C";
+    endif
+  endif
+
+  if (nargin == 0 || nargin == 1)
+
+    old_cmd = __ls_command__;
+
+    if (nargin == 1)
+      if (ischar (cmd))
+	__ls_command__ = cmd;
+      else
+	error ("ls_command: expecting argument to be a character string");
+      endif
+    endif
+
+  endif
+
+endfunction