fix for issue #165

cftime/_cftime.pyx

@@ -328,12 +328,13 @@ def num2date(times,units,calendar='standard',\
             msg='zero not allowed as a reference year, does not exist in Julian or Gregorian calendars'
             raise ValueError(msg)
 
-    if only_use_cftime_datetimes or not \
-       (only_use_python_datetimes and can_use_python_datetime):
-        cdftime = utime(units, calendar=calendar,
-                        only_use_cftime_datetimes=only_use_cftime_datetimes)
-        return cdftime.num2date(times)
-    else: # use python datetime module
+    use_python_datetime = False
+    if only_use_python_datetimes and not only_use_cftime_datetimes:
+        use_python_datetime = True
+    if not only_use_python_datetimes and not only_use_cftime_datetimes and can_use_python_datetime:
+        use_python_datetime = True
+
+    if use_python_datetime: # use python datetime module
         isscalar = False
         try:
             times[0]
@@ -386,6 +387,11 @@ OverflowError in python datetime, probably because year < datetime.MINYEAR"""
             return dates[0]
         else:
             return np.reshape(np.array(dates), shape)
+    else: # use cftime datetime
+        cdftime = utime(units, calendar=calendar,
+                        only_use_cftime_datetimes=only_use_cftime_datetimes)
+        return cdftime.num2date(times)
+
 
 
 def date2index(dates, nctime, calendar=None, select='exact'):

test/test_cftime.py

@@ -744,6 +744,9 @@ def test_tz_naive(self):
         d = cftime.num2date(1261440000.015625,units)
         # on windows only 100 ms precision
         assert(str(d)[0:24] == '2009-12-22 00:00:00.0156')
+        # issue #165: make sure python datetime returned
+        d=num2date(0,units="seconds since 2000-01-01 00:00:00",only_use_cftime_datetimes=False)
+        assert isinstance(d, datetime)
 
 class TestDate2index(unittest.TestCase):