--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2000-2012 Paul Kienzle
+##
+## 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{b}, @var{c}] =} spdiags (@var{A})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{b} =} spdiags (@var{A}, @var{c})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{b} =} spdiags (@var{v}, @var{c}, @var{A})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{b} =} spdiags (@var{v}, @var{c}, @var{m}, @var{n})
+## A generalization of the function @code{diag}. Called with a single
+## input argument, the non-zero diagonals @var{c} of @var{A} are extracted.
+## With two arguments the diagonals to extract are given by the vector
+## @var{c}.
+##
+## The other two forms of @code{spdiags} modify the input matrix by
+## replacing the diagonals. They use the columns of @var{v} to replace
+## the columns represented by the vector @var{c}. If the sparse matrix
+## @var{A} is defined then the diagonals of this matrix are replaced.
+## Otherwise a matrix of @var{m} by @var{n} is created with the
+## diagonals given by @var{v}.
+##
+## Negative values of @var{c} represent diagonals below the main
+## diagonal, and positive values of @var{c} diagonals above the main
+## diagonal.
+##
+## For example:
+##
+## @example
+## @group
+## spdiags (reshape (1:12, 4, 3), [-1 0 1], 5, 4)
+## @result{} 5 10 0 0
+## 1 6 11 0
+## 0 2 7 12
+## 0 0 3 8
+## 0 0 0 4
+## @end group
+## @end example
+##
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function [A, c] = spdiags (v, c, m, n)
+
+ if (nargin == 1 || nargin == 2)
+ ## extract nonzero diagonals of v into A,c
+ [nr, nc] = size (v);
+ [i, j, v] = find (v);
+
+ if (nargin == 1)
+ ## c contains the active diagonals
+ c = unique (j-i);
+ endif
+ ## FIXME: we can do this without a loop if we are clever
+ offset = max (min (c, nc-nr), 0);
+ A = zeros (min (nr, nc), length (c));
+ for k = 1:length (c)
+ idx = find (j-i == c(k));
+ A(j(idx)-offset(k),k) = v(idx);
+ endfor
+ elseif (nargin == 3)
+ ## Replace specific diagonals c of m with v,c
+ [nr, nc] = size (m);
+ B = spdiags (m, c);
+ A = m - spdiags (B, c, nr, nc) + spdiags (v, c, nr, nc);
+ else
+ ## Create new matrix of size mxn using v,c
+ [j, i, v] = find (v);
+ offset = max (min (c(:), n-m), 0);
+ j = j + offset(i);
+ i = j-c(:)(i);
+ idx = i > 0 & i <= m & j > 0 & j <= n;
+ A = sparse (i(idx), j(idx), v(idx), m, n);
+ endif
+
+endfunction
+
+%!test
+%assert(spdiags(zeros(1,0),1,1,1),0)
+
+%!test
+%assert(spdiags(zeros(0,1),1,1,1),0)