## Copyright (C) 2010-2011 VZLU Prague
##
## 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{str} =} fileread (@var{filename})
## Read the contents of a file and return it as a string.
## @seealso{fread, textread}
## @end deftypefn

function str = fileread (filename)

  if (nargin != 1)
    print_usage ();
  endif

  if (! ischar (filename))
    error ("fileread: argument must be a string");
  endif

  fid = fopen (filename, "r");
  if (fid < 0)
    error ("fileread: cannot open file");
  endif

  unwind_protect
    str = fread (fid, "*char");    
  unwind_protect_cleanup
    fclose (fid);
  end_unwind_protect

endfunction