## Copyright (C) 1996 Kurt Hornik
##
## 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 2, 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, write to the Free
## Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
## 02111-1307, USA.

## -*- texinfo -*-
## @deftypefn {Function File} {} blanks (@var{n} [, @var{m}])
## Return a string of @var{n} blanks, or a @address@hidden blank string matrix. 
## @end deftypefn

## Author: Kurt Hornik <address@hidden>
## Adapted-By: jwe
## String matrix support by: Teemu Ikonen <address@hidden>

function s = blanks (n, varargin)

  if (nargin() == 1) 
    if (isscalar (n))
      s = char (ones (1, n) * toascii (" "));
    else
      error ("blanks: n must be a non-negative integer");
    endif    
  elseif(nargin() == 2)
    m = varargin{1};
    if (isscalar (n) && isscalar(m))    
      s = char (ones(n, m) * toascii (" "));
    else
      error ("blanks: n must be a non-negative integer");
    endif
  else
    usage ("blanks (n [,m])");
  endif

endfunction