In C#, how do I calculate someone's age based on a DateTime type birthday?

Question

Given a DateTime representing a person\'s birthday, how do I calculate their age in years?

Answer 1

Do we need to consider people who is smaller than 1 year? as Chinese culture, we describe small babies' age as 2 months or 4 weeks.

Below is my implementation, it is not as simple as what I imagined, especially to deal with date like 2/28.

public static string HowOld(DateTime birthday, DateTime now)
{
    if (now < birthday)
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("birthday must be less than now.");

    TimeSpan diff = now - birthday;
    int diffDays = (int)diff.TotalDays;

    if (diffDays > 7)//year, month and week
    {
        int age = now.Year - birthday.Year;

        if (birthday > now.AddYears(-age))
            age--;

        if (age > 0)
        {
            return age + (age > 1 ? " years" : " year");
        }
        else
        {// month and week
            DateTime d = birthday;
            int diffMonth = 1;

            while (d.AddMonths(diffMonth) <= now)
            {
                diffMonth++;
            }

            age = diffMonth-1;

            if (age == 1 && d.Day > now.Day)
                age--;

            if (age > 0)
            {
                return age + (age > 1 ? " months" : " month");
            }
            else
            {
                age = diffDays / 7;
                return age + (age > 1 ? " weeks" : " week");
            }
        }
    }
    else if (diffDays > 0)
    {
        int age = diffDays;
        return age + (age > 1 ? " days" : " day");
    }
    else
    {
        int age = diffDays;
        return "just born";
    }
}

This implementation has passed below test cases.

[TestMethod]
public void TestAge()
{
    string age = HowOld(new DateTime(2011, 1, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 year", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2011, 11, 30), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 year", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2001, 1, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("11 years", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 1, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("10 months", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2011, 12, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("11 months", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 10, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 month", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2008, 2, 28), new DateTime(2009, 2, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 year", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2008, 3, 28), new DateTime(2009, 2, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("11 months", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2008, 3, 28), new DateTime(2009, 3, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 year", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2009, 1, 28), new DateTime(2009, 2, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 month", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2009, 2, 1), new DateTime(2009, 3, 1));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 month", age);

    // NOTE.
    // new DateTime(2008, 1, 31).AddMonths(1) == new DateTime(2009, 2, 28);
    // new DateTime(2008, 1, 28).AddMonths(1) == new DateTime(2009, 2, 28);
    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2009, 1, 31), new DateTime(2009, 2, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("4 weeks", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2009, 2, 1), new DateTime(2009, 2, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("3 weeks", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2009, 2, 1), new DateTime(2009, 3, 1));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 month", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 11, 5), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("3 weeks", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 11, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("4 weeks", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 11, 20), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 week", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 11, 25), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("5 days", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 11, 29), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("1 day", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 11, 30), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    Assert.AreEqual("just born", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2000, 2, 29), new DateTime(2009, 2, 28));
    Assert.AreEqual("8 years", age);

    age = HowOld(new DateTime(2000, 2, 29), new DateTime(2009, 3, 1));
    Assert.AreEqual("9 years", age);

    Exception e = null;

    try
    {
        age = HowOld(new DateTime(2012, 12, 1), new DateTime(2012, 11, 30));
    }
    catch (ArgumentOutOfRangeException ex)
    {
        e = ex;
    }

    Assert.IsTrue(e != null);
}

Hope it's helpful.

Answer 2

My suggestion

int age = (int) ((DateTime.Now - bday).TotalDays/365.242199);

That seems to have the year changing on the right date. (I spot tested up to age 107.)

Answer 3

This classic question is deserving of a Noda Time solution.

static int GetAge(LocalDate dateOfBirth)
{
    Instant now = SystemClock.Instance.Now;

    // The target time zone is important.
    // It should align with the *current physical location* of the person
    // you are talking about.  When the whereabouts of that person are unknown,
    // then you use the time zone of the person who is *asking* for the age.
    // The time zone of birth is irrelevant!

    DateTimeZone zone = DateTimeZoneProviders.Tzdb["America/New_York"];

    LocalDate today = now.InZone(zone).Date;

    Period period = Period.Between(dateOfBirth, today, PeriodUnits.Years);

    return (int) period.Years;
}

Usage:

LocalDate dateOfBirth = new LocalDate(1976, 8, 27);
int age = GetAge(dateOfBirth);

You might also be interested in the following improvements:

• Passing in the clock as an IClock, instead of using SystemClock.Instance, would improve testability.

• The target time zone will likely change, so you'd want a DateTimeZone parameter as well.

See also my blog post on this subject: Handling Birthdays, and Other Anniversaries

Answer 4

Here's yet another answer:

public static int AgeInYears(DateTime birthday, DateTime today)
{
    return ((today.Year - birthday.Year) * 372 + (today.Month - birthday.Month) * 31 + (today.Day - birthday.Day)) / 372;
}

This has been extensively unit-tested. It does look a bit "magic". The number 372 is the number of days there would be in a year if every month had 31 days.

The explanation of why it works (lifted from here) is:

Let's set Yn = DateTime.Now.Year, Yb = birthday.Year, Mn = DateTime.Now.Month, Mb = birthday.Month, Dn = DateTime.Now.Day, Db = birthday.Day

age = Yn - Yb + (31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db)) / 372

We know that what we need is either Yn-Yb if the date has already been reached, Yn-Yb-1 if it has not.

a) If Mn<Mb, we have -341 <= 31*(Mn-Mb) <= -31 and -30 <= Dn-Db <= 30

-371 <= 31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db) <= -1

With integer division

(31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db)) / 372 = -1

b) If Mn=Mb and Dn<Db, we have 31*(Mn - Mb) = 0 and -30 <= Dn-Db <= -1

With integer division, again

(31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db)) / 372 = -1

c) If Mn>Mb, we have 31 <= 31*(Mn-Mb) <= 341 and -30 <= Dn-Db <= 30

1 <= 31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db) <= 371

With integer division

(31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db)) / 372 = 0

d) If Mn=Mb and Dn>Db, we have 31*(Mn - Mb) = 0 and 1 <= Dn-Db <= 30

With integer division, again

(31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db)) / 372 = 0

e) If Mn=Mb and Dn=Db, we have 31*(Mn - Mb) + Dn-Db = 0

and therefore (31*(Mn - Mb) + (Dn - Db)) / 372 = 0

Answer 5

I use this:

public static class DateTimeExtensions
{
    public static int Age(this DateTime birthDate)
    {
        return Age(birthDate, DateTime.Now);
    }

    public static int Age(this DateTime birthDate, DateTime offsetDate)
    {
        int result=0;
        result = offsetDate.Year - birthDate.Year;

        if (offsetDate.DayOfYear < birthDate.DayOfYear)
        {
              result--;
        }

        return result;
    }
}

Answer 6

I have created a SQL Server User Defined Function to calculate someone's age, given their birthdate. This is useful when you need it as part of a query:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.Sql;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Data.SqlTypes;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Server;

public partial class UserDefinedFunctions
{
    [SqlFunction(DataAccess = DataAccessKind.Read)]
    public static SqlInt32 CalculateAge(string strBirthDate)
    {
        DateTime dtBirthDate = new DateTime();
        dtBirthDate = Convert.ToDateTime(strBirthDate);
        DateTime dtToday = DateTime.Now;

        // get the difference in years
        int years = dtToday.Year - dtBirthDate.Year;

        // subtract another year if we're before the
        // birth day in the current year
        if (dtToday.Month < dtBirthDate.Month || (dtToday.Month == dtBirthDate.Month && dtToday.Day < dtBirthDate.Day))
            years=years-1;

        int intCustomerAge = years;
        return intCustomerAge;
    }
};