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

As suggested by @[Tomasz Zielinski] and @Williams python-dateutil can do it just 5 lines.

from dateutil.relativedelta import *
from datetime import date
today = date.today()
dob = date(1982, 7, 5)
age = relativedelta(today, dob)

>>relativedelta(years=+33, months=+11, days=+16)`

Answer 2

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 3

from datetime import date

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

Update: Use Danny's solution, it's better

Answer 4

from datetime import date

def age(birth_date):
    today = date.today()
    y = today.year - birth_date.year
    if today.month < birth_date.month or today.month == birth_date.month and today.day < birth_date.day:
        y -= 1
    return y

Answer 5

from datetime import date

days_in_year = 365.2425    
age = int((date.today() - birth_date).days / days_in_year)

In Python 3, you could perform division on datetime.timedelta:

from datetime import date, timedelta

age = (date.today() - birth_date) // timedelta(days=365.2425)

Answer 6

Expanding on Danny's Solution, but with all sorts of ways to report ages for younger folk (note, today is datetime.date(2015,7,17)):

def calculate_age(born):
    '''
        Converts a date of birth (dob) datetime object to years, always rounding down.
        When the age is 80 years or more, just report that the age is 80 years or more.
        When the age is less than 12 years, rounds down to the nearest half year.
        When the age is less than 2 years, reports age in months, rounded down.
        When the age is less than 6 months, reports the age in weeks, rounded down.
        When the age is less than 2 weeks, reports the age in days.
    '''
    today = datetime.date.today()
    age_in_years = today.year - born.year - ((today.month, today.day) < (born.month, born.day))
    months = (today.month - born.month - (today.day < born.day)) %12
    age = today - born
    age_in_days = age.days
    if age_in_years >= 80:
        return 80, 'years or older'
    if age_in_years >= 12:
        return age_in_years, 'years'
    elif age_in_years >= 2:
        half = 'and a half ' if months > 6 else ''
        return age_in_years, '%syears'%half
    elif months >= 6:
        return months, 'months'
    elif age_in_days >= 14:
        return age_in_days/7, 'weeks'
    else:
        return age_in_days, 'days'

Sample code:

print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(1933,6,12)) # >=80 years
print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(1963,6,12)) # >=12 years
print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(2010,6,19)) # >=2 years
print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(2010,11,19)) # >=2 years with half
print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(2014,11,19)) # >=6 months
print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(2015,6,4)) # >=2 weeks
print '%d %s' %calculate_age(datetime.date(2015,7,11)) # days old

80 years or older
52 years
5 years
4 and a half years
7 months
6 weeks
7 days