function daxis(aksis,dateform,startdate)
% Simplified version of the Financial Toolbox's 'dateaxis' command
startdate = 0;
% Get axis tick values and add appropriate start date.
Lim = get(gca,[aksis,'lim']);
xl = get(gca,[aksis,'tick'])'+datenum(startdate);
set(gca,[aksis,'tickmode'],'manual',[aksis,'limmode'],'manual')
n = length(xl);
% To guarantee that the day, month, and year strings have the
% the same number of characters after the integer to string
% conversion, add 100 to the day and month numbers and 10000 to
% the year numbers for proper padding. This also allows for
% padding numbers with zeros. For example, the first day of a
% given month will be printed as 01 instead of 1. The tick values
% are converted into one long concatenated string by int2str.
% Reshape matrix so each column is a single value plus the
% appropriate padding number. Transpose so each row is now this
% single value and the needed columns can be extracted.
[mnum,mstring] = month(xl); % Get month number and string from values
ds = int2str(day(xl)+100); % Build day of month matrix
ms = int2str(mnum+100); % Build month number matrix
ys = int2str(abs(year(xl))+10000); % Build year matrix
hs = int2str(100); % Dummy hour matrix
mins = int2str(100); % Dummy minute matrix
ss = int2str(100); % Dummy second matrix
dstr = [char(mstring'),ys(:,4:5)];
% Set axis tick labels
set(gca,[aksis,'ticklabel'],dstr)
