--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2002 Etienne Grossmann <etienne@isr.ist.utl.pt>
+##
+## This program 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.
+##
+## This program 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
+## this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn{Function File} {@var{s} = } slurp_file ( f )
+## @cindex
+## slurp_file return a whole text file @var{f} as a string @var{s}.
+##
+## @var{f} : string : filename
+## @var{s} : string : contents of the file
+##
+## If @var{f} is not an absolute filename, and
+## is not an immediately accessible file, slurp_file ()
+## will look for @var{f} in the path.
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function s = slurp_file (f)
+
+ if (nargin != 1)
+ print_usage;
+ elseif ! ischar (f)
+ error ("f is not a string");
+ elseif isempty (f)
+ error ("f is empty");
+ endif
+
+ s = "";
+
+ f0 = f;
+ [st,err,msg] = stat (f);
+ if err && f(1) != "/",
+ f = file_in_loadpath (f);
+ if isempty (f)
+ ## Could not find it anywhere. Open will fail
+ f = f0;
+ error ("slurp_file : Can't find '%s' anywhere",f0);
+ end
+ end
+
+ ## I'll even get decent error messages!
+ [status, s] = system (sprintf ("cat '%s'",f), 1);
+endfunction