## Copyright (C) 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2007
##               John W. Eaton
##
## 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} {} poly (@var{a})
## If @var{a} is a square @math{N}-by-@math{N} matrix, @code{poly (@var{a})}
## is the row vector of the coefficients of @code{det (z * eye (N) - a)},
## the characteristic polynomial of @var{a}.  As an example we can use
## this to find the eigenvalues of @var{a} as the roots of @code{poly (@var{a})}.
## @example
## roots(poly(eye(3)))
## @result{} 1.00000 + 0.00000i
## @result{} 1.00000 - 0.00000i
## @result{} 1.00000 + 0.00000i
## @end example
## In real-life examples you should, however, use the @code{eig} function
## for computing eigenvalues.
##
## If @var{x} is a vector, @code{poly (@var{x})} is a vector of coefficients
## of the polynomial whose roots are the elements of @var{x}.  That is,
## of @var{c} is a polynomial, then the elements of 
## @code{@var{d} = roots (poly (@var{c}))} are contained in @var{c}.
## The vectors @var{c} and @var{d} are, however, not equal due to sorting
## and numerical errors.
## @seealso{eig, roots}
## @end deftypefn

## Author: KH <Kurt.Hornik@wu-wien.ac.at>
## Created: 24 December 1993
## Adapted-By: jwe

function y = poly (x)

  if (nargin != 1)
    print_usage ();
  endif

  m = min (size (x));
  n = max (size (x));
  if (m == 0)
    y = 1;
    return;
  elseif (m == 1)
    v = x;
  elseif (m == n)
    v = eig (x);
  else
    print_usage ();
  endif

  y = zeros (1, n+1);
  y(1) = 1;
  for j = 1:n;
    y(2:(j+1)) = y(2:(j+1)) - v(j) .* y(1:j);
  endfor

  if (all (all (imag (x) == 0)))
    y = real (y);
  endif

endfunction
