--- /dev/null
+## Copyright (C) 2008 Bill Denney
+##
+## This software 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 software 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 software; see the file COPYING. If not, see
+## <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {@var{status} =} __functionstatus__ (@var{funname})
+## Return if a function is present in octave: -1 = not checked, 0 =
+## missing, 1 = present
+## @end deftypefn
+
+function status = __functionstatus__ (funname)
+
+ if ischar (funname)
+ funname = {funname};
+ elseif ~ iscellstr (funname)
+ print_usage ();
+ endif
+
+ status = zeros (size (funname));
+ for i = 1:numel (funname)
+ if any (! (isalpha (funname{i}) | isdigit (funname{i})))
+ ## not checked
+ status(i) = -1;
+ elseif iskeyword (funname{i}) || which (funname{i})
+ ## present
+ status(i) = 1;
+ else
+ ## missing
+ status(i) = 0;
+ endif
+ endfor
+
+endfunction