Age & Anniversary Calculations

[Peter M. Brigham, MD]

Sorry, I copied and pasted an older version of the handler. Try this:

function doAge tDate,asOf
   -- returns the age given birthdate = <tDate>
   -- as of the date <asOf> (if empty, assumes today)
   if tDate = empty then return empty
   if asOf = empty then
      put the date into asOf
   end if
   set the itemdelimiter to "/"
   put item -1 of the short date into nowYr
   set the centurycutoff to nowYr+1
   set the itemdelimiter to comma
   convert tDate to dateItems
   convert asOf to dateitems
   put item 1 of asOf - item 1 of tDate - 1 into tAge
   put item 1 of asOf into item 1 of tDate
   convert tDate to seconds
   convert asOf to seconds
   if tDate <= asOf then add 1 to tAge
   return tAge
end doAge

Don't know if there is another problem with it, but I have been using this version for some time with no errors cropping up that I have noticed.

-- Peter

Peter M. Brigham
pmbrig at gmail.com
http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig


On May 21, 2012, at 3:02 PM, Bob Sneidar wrote:

> Wasn't there a recent post that indicated this would not work? Anything before a certain date (I forget what it was) would be a day off?
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
> On May 21, 2012, at 9:38 AM, Peter M. Brigham, MD wrote:
> 
>> Here's what I use for #1:
>> 
>> function doAge tDate,asOf
>>  -- return the age given birthdate = <tDate>
>>  -- as of the date <asOf> (if empty, assumes today)
>>  convert tDate to dateItems
>>  if asOf = empty then
>>     put the date into asOf
>>  end if
>>  convert asOf to dateitems
>>  put item 1 of asOf - item 1 of tDate - 1 into tAge
>>  put item 1 of asOf into item 1 of tDate
>>  convert tDate to seconds
>>  convert asOf to seconds
>>  if tDate <= asOf then add 1 to tAge
>>  return tAge
>> end doAge
>> 
>> -- Peter
>> 
>> Peter M. Brigham
>> pmbrig at gmail.com
>> http://home.comcast.net/~pmbrig
>> 
>> 
>> On May 21, 2012, at 3:02 AM, Igor de Oliveira Couto wrote:
>> 
>>> Dear LC Folks,
>>> 
>>> What is the 'best' way to perform these 2 calculations with LiveCode?
>>> 
>>> 1) Calculate a person's age, given a birthdate:
>>> 
>>> /*
>>> Calculates the number of birthdays from a given date, up to and including *today*.
>>> @param pBirthDate the birthdate
>>> @return a positive integer representing the number of birthdays from pBirthDate to today.
>>> */
>>> function currentAge pBirthDate
>>> ...?
>>> end currentAge
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2) Calculate whether an *anniversary* falls within a time frame - ie., within a week, within 2 weeks, within a month of today:
>>> 
>>> /*
>>> Determines whether an anniversary date is close to a 'reference date'.
>>> @param pAnniversaryDate the anniversary date
>>> @param pReferenceDate the date that is supposed to be 'close' - or not - to the anniversary date
>>> @pTimeFrame a time period, in seconds, that determines what 'close' is: it can be 1 day, 7 days, 1 month, etc.
>>> @return a boolean: if the anniversary date is sufficiently 'close' (as specified by pTimeFrame) to the reference date,
>>> then it returns TRUE, otherwise it returns FALSE.
>>> */
>>> function isAnniversaryClose pAnniversaryDate, pReferenceDate, pTimeFrame
>>> ...?
>>> end isAnniversaryClose
>>> 
>>> I'm not being lazy, but the algorithms I came up with look so 'convoluted' that I *know* there must be an easier way. I know that usually in every language there is a 'standard' or 'best-practice' way to perform these standard date calculations, so rather than re-inventing the wheel, I thought I'd run it by you, Masters, and be humbled by your experience! :-)
>>> 
>>> Many thanks in advance,
>>> 
>>> --
>>> Igor Couto
>>> Sydney, Australia
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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> 
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