--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2004-2012 David Bateman and Andy Adler
+##
+## 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{y} =} speye (@var{m})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{y} =} speye (@var{m}, @var{n})
+## @deftypefnx {Function File} {@var{y} =} speye (@var{sz})
+## Return a sparse identity matrix. This is significantly more
+## efficient than @code{sparse (eye (@var{m}))} as the full matrix
+## is not constructed.
+##
+## Called with a single argument a square matrix of size @var{m} by
+## @var{m} is created. Otherwise a matrix of @var{m} by @var{n} is
+## created. If called with a single vector argument, this argument
+## is taken to be the size of the matrix to create.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function s = speye (m, n)
+ if (nargin == 1)
+ if (isvector (m) && length(m) == 2)
+ n = m(2);
+ m = m(1);
+ elseif (isscalar (m))
+ n = m;
+ else
+ error ("speye: invalid matrix dimension");
+ endif
+ else
+ if (! isscalar (m) || ! isscalar (n))
+ error ("speye: invalid matrix dimension");
+ endif
+ endif
+
+ lo = min ([m, n]);
+ s = sparse (1:lo, 1:lo, 1, m, n);
+endfunction
+
+%!assert(issparse(speye(4)))
+%!assert(speye(4),sparse(1:4,1:4,1))
+%!assert(speye(2,4),sparse(1:2,1:2,1,2,4))
+%!assert(speye(4,2),sparse(1:2,1:2,1,4,2))
+%!assert(speye([4,2]),sparse(1:2,1:2,1,4,2))