How to calculate an age based on a birthday? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How do I calculate someone’s age in C#?

I want to write an ASP.NET helper method which returns the age of a person given his or her birthday.

I've tried code like this:

public static string Age(this HtmlHelper helper, DateTime birthday)
{
    return (DateTime.Now - birthday); //??
}

But it's not working. What is the correct way to calculate the person's age based on their birthday?

Answer 1

Stackoverflow uses such function to determine the age of a user.

Calculate age in C#

The given answer is

DateTime now = DateTime.Today;
int age = now.Year - bday.Year;
if (now < bday.AddYears(age)) age--;

So your helper method would look like

public static string Age(this HtmlHelper helper, DateTime birthday)
{
    DateTime now = DateTime.Today;
    int age = now.Year - birthday.Year;
    if (now < birthday.AddYears(age)) age--;

    return age.ToString();
}

Today, I use a different version of this function to include a date of reference. This allow me to get the age of someone at a future date or in the past. This is used for our reservation system, where the age in the future is needed.

public static int GetAge(DateTime reference, DateTime birthday)
{
    int age = reference.Year - birthday.Year;
    if (reference < birthday.AddYears(age)) age--;

    return age;
}

Answer 2

Another clever way from that ancient thread:

int age = (
    Int32.Parse(DateTime.Today.ToString("yyyyMMdd")) - 
    Int32.Parse(birthday.ToString("yyyyMMdd"))) / 10000;

Answer 3

I do it like this:

(Shortened the code a bit)

public struct Age
{
    public readonly int Years;
    public readonly int Months;
    public readonly int Days;

}

public Age( int y, int m, int d ) : this()
{
    Years = y;
    Months = m;
    Days = d;
}

public static Age CalculateAge ( DateTime birthDate, DateTime anotherDate )
{
    if( startDate.Date > endDate.Date )
        {
            throw new ArgumentException ("startDate cannot be higher then endDate", "startDate");
        }

        int years = endDate.Year - startDate.Year;
        int months = 0;
        int days = 0;

        // Check if the last year, was a full year.
        if( endDate < startDate.AddYears (years) && years != 0 )
        {
            years--;
        }

        // Calculate the number of months.
        startDate = startDate.AddYears (years);

        if( startDate.Year == endDate.Year )
        {
            months = endDate.Month - startDate.Month;
        }
        else
        {
            months = ( 12 - startDate.Month ) + endDate.Month;
        }

        // Check if last month was a complete month.
        if( endDate < startDate.AddMonths (months) && months != 0 )
        {
            months--;
        }

        // Calculate the number of days.
        startDate = startDate.AddMonths (months);

        days = ( endDate - startDate ).Days;

        return new Age (years, months, days);
}

// Implement Equals, GetHashCode, etc... as well
// Overload equality and other operators, etc...

}

Answer 4

I don't really understand why you would make this an HTML Helper. I would make it part of the ViewData dictionary in an action method of the controller. Something like this:

ViewData["Age"] = DateTime.Now.Year - birthday.Year;

Given that birthday is passed into an action method and is a DateTime object.