Matcompat's datenum.m weirdness

[E. Joshua Rigler]

Can someone explain the following?

 octave:240> datenum (1995, 01, 05) 
 ans = 728664.291666667
              ^^^^^^^^^

In particular, why is there a fractional day?  I included no hours,
minutes, or seconds.  I should note than when I do include hours,
minutes, and seconds, this fractional offset remains.  

 octave:246> datenum (1995, 01, 05, 0, 02, 30)
 ans = 728664.293402778

 (should be 728664.0017361111)

Should this be considered a bug?  Does this have anything to do with
working on a 32 bit architecture (PC linux), as opposed to a 64?  Matlab
on solaris does this properly.  I begin to wonder if using standard C
libraries for time/date functions is appropriate.  They seem buggy, and
too architecture dependant.

-EJR



-------------------------------------------------------------
Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Octave's home on the web:  http://www.octave.org
How to fund new projects:  http://www.octave.org/funding.html
Subscription information:  http://www.octave.org/archive.html
-------------------------------------------------------------