--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2007-2012 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} {} cast (@var{val}, @var{type})
+## Convert @var{val} to data type @var{type}.
+## @seealso{int8, uint8, int16, uint16, int32, uint32, int64, uint64, double}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+function retval = cast (val, typ)
+
+ if (nargin == 2)
+ if (ischar (typ))
+ if (any (strcmp (typ, {"int8"; "uint8"; "int16"; "uint16";
+ "int32"; "uint32"; "int64"; "uint64";
+ "double"; "single"; "logical"; "char"})))
+ retval = feval (typ, val);
+ else
+ error ("cast: type name `%s' is not a built-in type", typ);
+ endif
+ else
+ error ("cast: expecting TYPE name as second argument");
+ endif
+ else
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+endfunction