# Copyright (C) 1995 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.

function y = poly (x)

# usage: poly (x)
#
# If A is a square n-by-n matrix, poly (A) is the row vector of 
# the coefficients of det (z * eye(n) - A), the characteristic
# polynomial of A.
#
# If x is a vector, poly (x) is a vector of coefficients of the
# polynomial whose roots are the elements of x.

# Written by KH (Kurt.Hornik@neuro.tuwien.ac.at) Dec 24, 1993.

  if (nargin != 1)
    usage ("poly (x)");
  endif

  m = min (size (x));
  n = max (size (x));
  if (m == 0)
    y = 1;
  elseif (m == 1)
    v = x;
  elseif (m == n)
    v = eig (x);
  else
    usage ("poly (x), where x is a vector or a square matrix");
  endif
  
  y = [1, zeros (1, n)];
  for j = 1:n;
    y(2:(j+1)) = y(2:(j+1)) - v(j) .* y(1:j);
  endfor
  
  if (all (all (imag (x) == 0)))
    y = real (y);
  endif
  
endfunction