diff --git a/inst/@sym/class.m b/inst/@sym/class.m
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+++ b/inst/@sym/class.m
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+%% Copyright (C) 2016 Abhinav Tripathi and Colin B. Macdonald
+%%
+%% This file is part of Octave-Symbolic-SymPy
+%%
+%% Octave-Symbolic-SymPy 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 -*-
+%% @documentencoding UTF-8
+%% @deftypemethod  @var{c} = class (@var{x})
+%% @deftypemethodx @var{c} = class (@var{x}, @var{full})
+%% Return class name of the variable x.
+%%
+%% @var{full} decides if the fully qualified class name will be returned
+%% or not. It it true by default. 
+%%
+%% Example:
+%% @example
+%% @group
+%% syms x
+%% class(x)
+%%   @result{} ans = sympy.core.symbol.Symbol
+%% @end group
+%% @end example
+%%
+%% @example
+%% @group
+%% syms x
+%% class(x, false)
+%%   @result{} ans = Symbol
+%% @end group
+%% @end example
+%%
+%% @end deftypemethod
+
+function cname = class(x, full)
+
+  if (nargin > 2 || (nargin == 2 && !islogical(full)))
+    print_usage ();
+  end
+  
+  if (nargin == 1)
+    full = true;
+  end
+
+  % TODO: if the ipc is pytave then return @pyobject instead
+  cmd = { '(x,f) = _ins'
+          'return (x.__module__ + "." if f else "") + x.__class__.__name__'
+        };
+
+  cname = python_cmd (cmd, x, full);
+end
+
+
+%!error <Invalid> class (sym(1), true, 3)
+%!error <Invalid> class (sym(1), 2)
+
+%!test
+%! syms x y
+%! assert (class(x), 'sympy.core.symbol.Symbol')
+%! assert (class(x), class(x, true))
+%! assert (class(x), class(y))
+
+%!assert (class (sym (1)), 'sympy.core.numbers.One')
+%!assert (class (sym (1), false), 'One')
+
+%!assert (class (sym (1000)), 'sympy.core.numbers.Integer')
+%!assert (class (cos (sym (1))), 'sympy.functions.elementary.trigonometric.cos')