How can I add a day on a datestr equation?

I am having trouble understanding the serial number concept of date commands.

I want to sum five days on the command datestr(now)

I am proceding the following way

 x = datestr(now,1)

 ans =

 27-Sep-2012

I want to add up five days (y = 7 days) so that x + y =

 2-Oct-2012

Can you please help?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Another option is addtodate.

For example:

x = datestr(now,1)
y = 5;
z = addtodate(datenum(x), y, 'day');
zs = datestr(z,1)

gives:

x =

27-Sep-2012

zs =

02-Oct-2012