Computing the age in groovy - more realistic way

Question

I wrote a piece of code that generates the age more realistic to real life. I assume that we increment our age every year right when we meet the day and month of our birthday, so technically some years are longer and some are shorter, but to us people it doesn't matter. Here is the solution I came up with, I basically wanted to share my solution here, and I also appreciate if someone has a better approach to share.

def today= new GregorianCalendar()
def dob= new GregorianCalendar()
dob.set(Calendar.ERA, GregorianCalendar.AD )
dob.set(Calendar.YEAR, 1983 )
dob.set(Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.MAY )
dob.set(Calendar.DATE, 23)


userMonth=dob.get(Calendar.MONTH)
userDay=dob.get(Calendar.DATE)
todayMonth=today.get(Calendar.MONTH)
todayDay=today.get(Calendar.DATE)

if(todayMonth < userMonth && todayDay < userDay){
    println today.get(Calendar.YEAR)-dob.get(Calendar.YEAR)-1
}else{
    println today.get(Calendar.YEAR)-dob.get(Calendar.YEAR)
}

If you want a code review, then post to codereview.stackexchange.com — JB Nizet, Dec 10 '13 at 20:22
It's not a code review, it's a solution I wanna share so people can use it, I spent some time trying to find a solution but most of them were simple subtraction of years, so I wanted to share my solution for people who may find it useful. — AlexCon, Dec 10 '13 at 20:25
@user3005591: But the purpose of SO is to *ask questions*. It's not a blog... — Oliver Charlesworth, Dec 11 '13 at 02:27

silverbeak · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-10T21:05:36.890

This is an open-ended question, so you might want to consider turning it into something less subjective.

That being said, my take would be to use joda-time, in which case you could do something like this:

import org.joda.time.DateTime
import org.joda.time.Years

def yob = new DateTime(1983, 12, 10, 0, 0).toDateMidnight()
def now = DateTime.now().toDateMidnight()

def years = Years.yearsBetween(yob, now).getYears()

println "Years: $years"

If you just want to share your code for someone else to use (which, by the way, is awesome), perhaps you want to create a gist.

[EDIT] I just created one, here

Good luck!

Computing the age in groovy - more realistic way

1 Answers1