--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/scripts/miscellaneous/ls.m	Fri Oct 27 17:58:06 2006 +0000
@@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
+## 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 -*-
+## @deffn {Command} ls options
+## List directory contents.  For example,
+## 
+## @example
+## ls -l
+##      @print{} total 12
+##      @print{} -rw-r--r--   1 jwe  users  4488 Aug 19 04:02 foo.m
+##      @print{} -rw-r--r--   1 jwe  users  1315 Aug 17 23:14 bar.m
+## @end example
+## 
+## The @code{dir} and @code{ls} commands are implemented by calling your
+## system's directory listing command, so the available options may vary
+## from system to system.
+## @seealso{dir, stat, readdir, glob, filesep, ls_command}
+## @end deffn
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+## PKG_ADD: mark_as_command ls
+
+function retval = ls (varargin)
+
+  global __ls_command__;
+
+  if (isempty (__ls_command__) || ! ischar (__ls_command__))
+    ## Initialize value for __ls_command__.
+    ls_command ();
+  endif
+
+  if (iscellstr (varargin))
+
+    args = tilde_expand (varargin);
+
+    cmd = sprintf ("%s ", __ls_command__, args{:});
+
+    if (page_screen_output ())
+
+      [status, output] = system (cmd);
+
+      if (status == 0)
+	puts (output);
+      else
+	error ("ls: command exited abnormally with status %d", status);
+      endif
+
+    else
+      ## Just let the output flow if the pager is off.  That way the
+      ## output from things like "ls -R /" will show up immediately and
+      ## we won't have to buffer all the output.
+      system (cmd);
+    endif
+    
+  else
+    error ("ls: expecting all arguments to be character strings");
+  endif
+
+endfunction