--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/pyversion.m	Tue Aug 16 00:31:22 2016 -0700
@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+## Copyright (C) 2016 Mike Miller
+##
+## This file is part of Pytave.
+##
+## Pytave 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.
+##
+## Pytave 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 Pytave; see the file COPYING.  If not, see
+## <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn  {} {} pyversion
+## @deftypefnx {} {@var{ver} =} pyversion
+## @deftypefnx {} {[@var{ver}, @var{exec}, @var{loaded}] =} pyversion
+## List information about the Python runtime used by Octave Python functions.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function varargout = pyversion ()
+
+  if (nargin > 0)
+    print_usage ();
+  endif
+
+  ver = char (pycall ("sysconfig.get_python_version"));
+
+  if ((nargout == 0) || (nargout > 1))
+    exec = char (py.sys.executable);
+  endif
+
+  ## FIXME: determine whether the Python runtime has been loaded yet
+  if ((nargout == 0) || (nargout > 2))
+    loaded = true;
+  endif
+
+  if (nargout == 0)
+    dlllibrary = char (pycall ("sysconfig.get_config_var", "DLLLIBRARY"));
+    if (isempty (dlllibrary))
+      libdir = pycall ("sysconfig.get_config_var", "LIBDIR");
+      ldlibrary = pycall ("sysconfig.get_config_var", "LDLIBRARY");
+    else
+      libdir = pycall ("sysconfig.get_config_var", "BINDIR");
+      ldlibrary = dlllibrary;
+    endif
+    multiarch = pycall ("sysconfig.get_config_var", "MULTIARCH");
+    lib = char (pycall ("os.path.join", libdir, multiarch, ldlibrary));
+    prefix = char (pycall ("sysconfig.get_config_var", "prefix"));
+
+    printf ("       version: \"%s\"\n", ver);
+    printf ("    executable: \"%s\"\n", exec);
+    printf ("       library: \"%s\"\n", lib);
+    printf ("        prefix: \"%s\"\n", prefix);
+    printf ("        loaded: %d\n", loaded);
+  else
+    if (nargout > 0)
+      varargout{1} = ver;
+    endif
+    if (nargout > 1)
+      varargout{2} = exec;
+    endif
+    if (nargout > 2)
+      varargout{3} = loaded;
+    endif
+  endif
+
+endfunction
+
+
+%!assert (ischar (pyversion ()))
+
+%!test
+%! [m, n] = regexp (pyversion (), '^(\d\.\d)$');
+%! assert ([m, n], [1, 3])
+
+%!test
+%! [~, ~, v] = pyversion ();
+%! assert (v, true)
+
+%!error pyversion (1)
+%!error pyversion ("python")
+%!error pyversion ("/usr/bin/python")