--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2010-2012 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 @var{filename} and return it as a string.
+## @seealso{fread, textread, sscanf}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function str = fileread (filename)
+
+ if (nargin != 1)
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+ if (! ischar (filename))
+ error ("fileread: FILENAME 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
+
+
+%!test
+%! cstr = {"Hello World", "The answer is 42", "Goodbye World"};
+%! fname = tmpnam ();
+%! fid = fopen (fname, "w");
+%! fprintf (fid, "%s\n", cstr{:})
+%! fclose (fid);
+%! str = fileread (fname);
+%! assert (str', [cstr{1} "\n" cstr{2} "\n" cstr{3} "\n"]);
+%! unlink (fname);
+
+%% Test input validation
+%!error fileread ()
+%!error fileread (1, 2)
+%!error <FILENAME argument must be a string> fileread (1)
+