## Copyright (C) 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 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 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} {} delete (@var{file})
## @deftypefnx {Function File} {} delete (@var{handle})
## Delete the named file or graphics handle.
##
## Deleting graphics objects is the proper way to remove
## features from a plot without clearing the entire figure.
## @seealso{clf, cla}
## @end deftypefn

## Author: jwe

function delete (arg)

  if (nargin == 1)
    if (ischar (arg))
      files = glob (arg).';
      if (isempty (files))
        warning ("delete: no such file: %s", arg);
      endif
      for i = 1:length (files)
        file = files{i};
        [err, msg] = unlink (file);
        if (err)
          warning ("delete: %s: %s", file, msg);
        endif
      endfor
    elseif (all (ishandle (arg(:))))
      ## Delete a graphics object.
      __go_delete__ (arg);
    else
      error ("delete: expecting argument to be a filename or graphics handle");
    endif
  else
    print_usage ();
  endif

endfunction