--- /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} {} loadprefs ()
+## Undocumented internal function.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+function retval = loadprefs ()
+
+ file = prefsfile ();
+
+ s = stat (file);
+
+ if (isstruct (s) && S_ISREG (s.mode))
+ tmp = load (file);
+ retval= tmp.prefs;
+ else
+ retval = [];
+ endif
+
+endfunction
+
+%% Testing these functions will require some care to avoid wiping out
+%% existing (or creating unwanted) preferences for the user running the
+%% tests.