--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2010-2012 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} {} is_valid_file_id (@var{fid})
+## Return true if @var{fid} refers to an open file.
+## @seealso{fopen}
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function retval = is_valid_file_id (fid)
+
+ retval = false;
+
+ if (nargin == 1)
+ try
+ if (isscalar (fid))
+ [file, mode, arch] = fopen (fid);
+ retval = ! isempty (file);
+ endif
+ end_try_catch
+ else
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+endfunction
+
+%!assert (is_valid_file_id (stdout))
+%!assert (! is_valid_file_id ([1,2;3,4]))
+%!assert (! is_valid_file_id ("not_a_file_id"))
+%!assert (! is_valid_file_id (-1))
+%!assert (! is_valid_file_id (pi))