MATLAB: Does the DATENUM function return incorrect result in MATLAB 7.0 (R14)

Question

This behavior can be reproduced using the following commands:

1. use the DATESTR command to convert a date number to a date string:

datestr(1)

This returns the expected result:

 ans =
 01-Jan-0000

2. Reverse the action by using the DATENUM command to convert the output string back to a date number:

datenum(datestr(1))

The expected output should be 1; however, it is 367.

 ans =
 367

This error only affects the year 0000.

Answer 1

This bug has been fixed for Release 14 SP1 (R14SP1). For previous releases, please read below for any possible workarounds:

This occurs because the year 0000 is only a reference year, and is not recognized as an actual year.

To workaround this issue, avoid using dates that utilize the year 0000.