--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 1996-2012 Kurt Hornik
+##
+## 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} {} deblank (@var{s})
+## Remove trailing whitespace and nulls from @var{s}. If @var{s}
+## is a matrix, @var{deblank} trims each row to the length of longest
+## string. If @var{s} is a cell array of strings, operate recursively on each
+## string element.
+##
+## Examples:
+##
+## @example
+## @group
+## deblank (" abc ")
+## @result{} " abc"
+##
+## deblank ([" abc "; " def "])
+## @result{} [" abc " ; " def"]
+## @end group
+## @end example
+## @seealso{strtrim}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik@wu-wien.ac.at>
+## Adapted-By: jwe
+
+function s = deblank (s)
+
+ if (nargin != 1)
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+ if (ischar (s))
+
+ k = find (! isspace (s) & s != "\0");
+ if (isempty (s) || isempty (k))
+ s = "";
+ else
+ s = s(:,1:ceil (max (k) / rows (s)));
+ endif
+
+ elseif (iscell (s))
+
+ char_idx = cellfun ("isclass", s, "char");
+ cell_idx = cellfun ("isclass", s, "cell");
+ if (! all (char_idx | cell_idx))
+ error ("deblank: S argument must be a string or cellstring");
+ endif
+
+ ## Divide work load. Recursive cellfun deblank call is slow
+ ## and avoided where possible.
+ s(char_idx) = regexprep (s(char_idx), "[\\s\v\\0]+$", '');
+ s(cell_idx) = cellfun ("deblank", s(cell_idx), "UniformOutput", false);
+
+ else
+ error ("deblank: S argument must be a string or cellstring");
+ endif
+
+endfunction
+
+
+%!assert (deblank (" f o o \0"), " f o o");
+%!assert (deblank (' '), '');
+%!assert (deblank (" "), "");
+%!assert (deblank (""), "");
+%!assert (deblank ({}), {});
+%!assert (deblank ({" abc ", {" def "}}), {" abc", {" def"}});
+
+%!error <Invalid call to deblank> deblank ();
+%!error <Invalid call to deblank> deblank ("foo", "bar");
+%!error <argument must be a string> deblank (1);
+%!error <argument must be a string> deblank ({[]});
+