--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 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} {@var{current_state}} recycle ()
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{old_state}} recycle (@var{new_state})
+## Query or set the preference for recycling deleted files.
+##
+## Recycling files instead of permanently deleting them is currently not
+## implemented in Octave. To help avoid accidental data loss it
+## is an error to attempt enable file recycling.
+## @seealso{delete}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+function retval = recycle (state)
+
+ persistent current_state = "off";
+
+ if (nargin > 1)
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+ if (nargin == 0 || nargout > 0)
+ retval = current_state;
+ endif
+
+ if (nargin == 1)
+ if (ischar (state))
+ if (strcmpi (state, "on"))
+ error ("recycle: recycling files is not implemented");
+ elseif (strcmpi (state, "off"))
+ current_state = "off";
+ else
+ error ("recycle: invalid value of STATE = `%s'", state);
+ endif
+ else
+ error ("recycle: expecting STATE to be a character string");
+ endif
+ endif
+
+endfunction
+
+%!error recycle ("on");
+%!error recycle ("on", "and I mean it");
+%!error recycle (1);
+
+%!test
+%! recycle ("off");
+%! assert (recycle ("off"), "off");