## Copyright (C) 1996 Kurt Hornik
##
## 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 2, 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; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the Free
## Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
## 02111-1307, USA.

## -*- texinfo -*-
## @deftypefn {Function File} {} strvcat (@var{s_1}, @dots{}, @var{s_n})
## Return a matrix containing the strings (and cell-strings) 
## @var{s_1}, @dots{}, @var{s_n} as
## its rows.  Each string is padded with blanks in order to form a valid
## matrix.  Unlike @var{str2mat}, empty strings are ignored.
##
## @end deftypefn

## Author: Kurt Hornik <Kurt.Hornik@ci.tuwien.ac.at>
## Adapted-By: jwe
## Modified: Paul Kienzle <pkienzle@kienzle.powernet.co.uk> converted
##           str2mat to strvcat.  Same function except that strvcat
##           ignores empty strings.
## Modified by Alois Schloegl <a.schloegl@ieee.org> Mar 2005
##	     added support for cell-strings 


function retval = strvcat (varargin)

  if (nargin == 0)
    usage ("strvcat (s1, ...)");
  endif

  va_arg_cnt = 1;


  nr = zeros (nargin, 1);
  nc = zeros (nargin, 1);
  K = 0; 
  for k = 1 : nargin
    s = nth (varargin, va_arg_cnt++);
    if iscell(s),
	for k1 = 1:length(s)
	    K = K+1;
	    [nr(K), nc(K)] = size (s{k1});
	end;
    else
        K = K+1;
        [nr(K), nc(K)] = size (s);
    end;	
  endfor

  retval_nr = sum (nr);
  retval_nc = max (nc);

  retval = char (ones (retval_nr, retval_nc) * toascii (" "));

  va_arg_cnt = 1;


  row_offset = 0;
  for k = 1 : nargin
    s = nth (varargin, va_arg_cnt++);
    if iscell(s),
	for k1 = 1:length(s)
	    retval(row_offset+k1,1:length(s{k1})) = char(s{k1});
	end;
        row_offset = row_offset + length(s);
    else
	if (nc(k) > 0)
    	    retval ((row_offset + 1) : (row_offset + nr(k)), 1:nc(k)) = char(s);
	endif
        row_offset = row_offset + size(s,1);
    end;
  endfor

endfunction