I would like to ask for help with calculating for a person's age with
the new versions of filemaker.

With the new database I am trying to develop, I need to calculate the
age of a person from date of birth. Looking through the older
threads, I found the functions TODAY, and Status(CurrentDate) being
recommended. However, when I try to use either of these in a
calculation, it aways says "unable to find function" or in the case of
currentdate, "unable to find specified field".

Is there a current simple calculation for it that will work?

Thanks!

gpicache (AT) gmail (DOT) com writes:

Let([
now = Get( CurrentDate ) ;
presentyear = Year( now ) ;
birthyear = Year( birthdate ) ;
birthday_thisyear = Date( Month( birthdate ) ; Day( birthdate ) ; Year(now) )
];

presentyear - birthyear -

// reduce result by 1 if birthday didn't take place this year
If( now < birthday_thisyear ; 1 )
)

-jens
--
http://jensteich.de
filemaker certified developer
filemaker authorized trainer

In article <1180652093.532303.124870 (AT) d30g2000prg (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
gpicache (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

Don't use Today. Today is really an auto-enter field that is only
calculated when FileMaker opens. This means a system left running past
midnight will return the wrong date.

Status(CurrentDate) is the better function that returns the current
date read from the computer when it is accessed ... BUT it is a
function for older versions of FileMaker. In new versions I believe it
has been renamed to Get(CurrentDate).


As for calculating someone's age there are two things to keep in mind.

If you're using it in a Calculation field, then this will be
recalculated every time you open the Database on a new day, which on a
slow computer or LOTS of records means it can take a little while. I
used to do this on an old Mac LC II a long time ago and it would take
20mins or so to recalculate. Today's computers are of course MUCH
faster than that.

The other thing to keep in mind is that you can't simply subtract the
birth year from the year returned by Get(CurrentDate) since the person
may not have had their birthday yet this year. This leads to a
Calculation something like:

Age Calculation, Number Result, Unstored
= Year(Get(CurrentDate)) - Year(Birthdate)
- If (Get(CurrentDate) < Date(Month(BirthDate),
Day(BirthDate), Year(GetCurrentDate)), 1, 0)




Helpful Harry
Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)

In article <010620071827453300%helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com>,
Helpful Harry <helpful_harry (AT) nom (DOT) de.plume.com> wrote:

I use a simple calculation that is pretty accurate:

Age = Int((Get(CurrentDate) - Birthdate)/365.25)

This returns the age in whole-number years in the conventional manner,
and takes leap-years into account. Over a long enough period it might
produce a wrong answer, because the solar year is not exactly 365.25
days, but it will give an accurate answer over the normal span of a
human lifetime.

--
For email, change <fake> to <earthlink>
Bill Collins

In article
<1180652093.532303.124870 (AT) d30g2000prg (DOT) googlegroups.com>gpicache (AT) gmail (DOT) c
om wrote:

Status used any longer. The modern equivalent in 7+ is Get (
CurrentDate ).
There are several Custom Functions for calculating age at Brian
Dunning.com (age between two dates, age as of today, etc.), any of
which can be used in a calculation field rather than as a CF.
Matt

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In article <nemoFri060107113330 (AT) alphaone (DOT) com> Matt WIlls <Im (AT) Witz (DOT) End>
wrote:

http://www.BrianDunning.com

Matt

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On Jun 1, 8:43 am, Matt WIlls <I... (AT) Witz (DOT) End> wrote:




Thank you so much, everyone. I am now excited to use your expert
advice.
It's the fist time I posted a question, and am so happy to receive
such valuable information.

gpicache