Age from birthdate in python

Question

How can I find an age in python from today's date and a persons birthdate? The birthdate is a from a DateField in a Django model.

Answer 1

Use the datetime module:

timedeltaObject = datetime.date.today() - datetime.date(2005,01,01)
age = timedeltaObject.days // 365

Note that this solution will not work correctly with leap years (for more information see here).

Answer 2

Unfortunately, you cannot just use timedelata as the largest unit it uses is day and leap years will render you calculations invalid. Therefore, let's find number of years then adjust by one if the last year isn't full:

from datetime import date
birth_date = date(1980, 5, 26)
years = date.today().year - birth_date.year
if (datetime.now() - birth_date.replace(year=datetime.now().year)).days >= 0:
    age = years
else:
    age = years - 1

Upd:

This solution really causes an exception when Feb, 29 comes into play. Here's correct check:

from datetime import date
birth_date = date(1980, 5, 26)
today = date.today()
years = today.year - birth_date.year
if all((x >= y) for x,y in zip(today.timetuple(), birth_date.timetuple()):
   age = years
else:
   age = years - 1

Upd2:

Calling multiple calls to now() a performance hit is ridiculous, it does not matter in all but extremely special cases. The real reason to use a variable is the risk of data incosistency.

Answer 3

The classic gotcha in this scenario is what to do with people born on the 29th day of February. Example: you need to be aged 18 to vote, drive a car, buy alcohol, etc ... if you are born on 2004-02-29, what is the first day that you are permitted to do such things: 2022-02-28, or 2022-03-01? AFAICT, mostly the first, but a few killjoys might say the latter.

Here's code that caters for the 0.068% (approx) of the population born on that day:

def age_in_years(from_date, to_date, leap_day_anniversary_Feb28=True):
    age = to_date.year - from_date.year
    try:
        anniversary = from_date.replace(year=to_date.year)
    except ValueError:
        assert from_date.day == 29 and from_date.month == 2
        if leap_day_anniversary_Feb28:
            anniversary = datetime.date(to_date.year, 2, 28)
        else:
            anniversary = datetime.date(to_date.year, 3, 1)
    if to_date < anniversary:
        age -= 1
    return age

if __name__ == "__main__":
    import datetime

    tests = """

    2004  2 28 2010  2 27  5 1
    2004  2 28 2010  2 28  6 1
    2004  2 28 2010  3  1  6 1

    2004  2 29 2010  2 27  5 1
    2004  2 29 2010  2 28  6 1
    2004  2 29 2010  3  1  6 1

    2004  2 29 2012  2 27  7 1
    2004  2 29 2012  2 28  7 1
    2004  2 29 2012  2 29  8 1
    2004  2 29 2012  3  1  8 1

    2004  2 28 2010  2 27  5 0
    2004  2 28 2010  2 28  6 0
    2004  2 28 2010  3  1  6 0

    2004  2 29 2010  2 27  5 0
    2004  2 29 2010  2 28  5 0
    2004  2 29 2010  3  1  6 0

    2004  2 29 2012  2 27  7 0
    2004  2 29 2012  2 28  7 0
    2004  2 29 2012  2 29  8 0
    2004  2 29 2012  3  1  8 0

    """

    for line in tests.splitlines():
        nums = [int(x) for x in line.split()]
        if not nums:
            print
            continue
        datea = datetime.date(*nums[0:3])
        dateb = datetime.date(*nums[3:6])
        expected, anniv = nums[6:8]
        age = age_in_years(datea, dateb, anniv)
        print datea, dateb, anniv, age, expected, age == expected

Here's the output:

2004-02-28 2010-02-27 1 5 5 True
2004-02-28 2010-02-28 1 6 6 True
2004-02-28 2010-03-01 1 6 6 True

2004-02-29 2010-02-27 1 5 5 True
2004-02-29 2010-02-28 1 6 6 True
2004-02-29 2010-03-01 1 6 6 True

2004-02-29 2012-02-27 1 7 7 True
2004-02-29 2012-02-28 1 7 7 True
2004-02-29 2012-02-29 1 8 8 True
2004-02-29 2012-03-01 1 8 8 True

2004-02-28 2010-02-27 0 5 5 True
2004-02-28 2010-02-28 0 6 6 True
2004-02-28 2010-03-01 0 6 6 True

2004-02-29 2010-02-27 0 5 5 True
2004-02-29 2010-02-28 0 5 5 True
2004-02-29 2010-03-01 0 6 6 True

2004-02-29 2012-02-27 0 7 7 True
2004-02-29 2012-02-28 0 7 7 True
2004-02-29 2012-02-29 0 8 8 True
2004-02-29 2012-03-01 0 8 8 True

Answer 4

def calculate_age(born):
    today = date.today()
    try: # raised when birth date is February 29 and the current year is not a leap year
        birthday = born.replace(year=today.year)
    except ValueError:
        birthday = born.replace(year=today.year, day=born.day-1)
    if birthday > today:
        return today.year - born.year - 1
    else:
        return today.year - born.year

Answer 5

As I did not see the correct implementation, I recoded mine this way...

    def age_in_years(from_date, to_date=datetime.date.today()):
  if (DEBUG):
    logger.debug("def age_in_years(from_date='%s', to_date='%s')" % (from_date, to_date))

  if (from_date>to_date): # swap when the lower bound is not the lower bound
    logger.debug('Swapping dates ...')
    tmp = from_date
    from_date = to_date
    to_date = tmp

  age_delta = to_date.year - from_date.year
  month_delta = to_date.month - from_date.month
  day_delta = to_date.day - from_date.day

  if (DEBUG):
    logger.debug("Delta's are : %i  / %i / %i " % (age_delta, month_delta, day_delta))

  if (month_delta>0  or (month_delta==0 and day_delta>=0)): 
    return age_delta 

  return (age_delta-1)

Assumption of being "18" on the 28th of Feb when born on the 29th is just wrong. Swapping the bounds can be left out ... it is just a personal convenience for my code :)