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+## Copyright (C) 1996, 1997 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 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, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+## 02110-1301, USA.
+
+## -*- texinfo -*-
+## @deftypefn {Function File} {} is_leap_year (@var{year})
+## Return 1 if the given year is a leap year and 0 otherwise.  If no
+## arguments are provided, @code{is_leap_year} will use the current year.
+## For example,
+##
+## @example
+## @group
+## is_leap_year (2000)
+##      @result{} 1
+## @end group
+## @end example
+## @end deftypefn
+
+## Author: jwe
+
+function retval = is_leap_year (year)
+
+  if (nargin > 1)
+    usage ("is_leap_year (year)");
+  endif
+
+  if (nargin == 0)
+    t = clock ();
+    year = t (1);
+  endif
+
+  retval = ((rem (year, 4) == 0 & rem (year, 100) != 0) ...
+            | rem (year, 400) == 0);
+
+endfunction