[java] How do I calculate someone's age in Java?

I want to return an age in years as an int in a Java method. What I have now is the following where getBirthDate() returns a Date object (with the birth date ;-)):

public int getAge() {
    long ageInMillis = new Date().getTime() - getBirthDate().getTime();

    Date age = new Date(ageInMillis);

    return age.getYear();
}

But since getYear() is deprecated I'm wondering if there is a better way to do this? I'm not even sure this works correctly, since I have no unit tests in place (yet).

I appreciate all correct answers but this is the kotlin answer for the same question

I hope would be helpful to kotlin developers

fun calculateAge(birthDate: Date): Int {
        val now = Date()
        val timeBetween = now.getTime() - birthDate.getTime();
        val yearsBetween = timeBetween / 3.15576e+10;
        return Math.floor(yearsBetween).toInt()
    }

public int getAge(Date birthDate) {
    Calendar a = Calendar.getInstance(Locale.US);
    a.setTime(date);
    Calendar b = Calendar.getInstance(Locale.US);
    int age = b.get(YEAR) - a.get(YEAR);
    if (a.get(MONTH) > b.get(MONTH) || (a.get(MONTH) == b.get(MONTH) && a.get(DATE) > b.get(DATE))) {
        age--;
    }
    return age;
}

public class CalculateAge { 

private int age;

private void setAge(int age){

    this.age=age;

}
public void calculateAge(Date date){

    Calendar calendar=Calendar.getInstance();

    Calendar calendarnow=Calendar.getInstance();    

    calendarnow.getTimeZone();

    calendar.setTime(date);

    int getmonth= calendar.get(calendar.MONTH);

    int getyears= calendar.get(calendar.YEAR);

    int currentmonth= calendarnow.get(calendarnow.MONTH);

    int currentyear= calendarnow.get(calendarnow.YEAR);

    int age = ((currentyear*12+currentmonth)-(getyears*12+getmonth))/12;

    setAge(age);
}
public int getAge(){

    return this.age;

}

/**
 * Compute from string date in the format of yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss the age of a person.
 * @author Yaron Ronen
 * @date 04/06/2012  
 */
private int computeAge(String sDate)
{
    // Initial variables.
    Date dbDate = null;
    SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");      

    // Parse sDate.
    try
    {
        dbDate = (Date)dateFormat.parse(sDate);
    }
    catch(ParseException e)
    {
        Log.e("MyApplication","Can not compute age from date:"+sDate,e);
        return ILLEGAL_DATE; // Const = -2
    }

    // Compute age.
    long timeDiff = System.currentTimeMillis() - dbDate.getTime();      
    int age = (int)(timeDiff / MILLI_SECONDS_YEAR);  // MILLI_SECONDS_YEAR = 31558464000L;

    return age; 
}

/**
 * This Method is unit tested properly for very different cases , 
 * taking care of Leap Year days difference in a year, 
 * and date cases month and Year boundary cases (12/31/1980, 01/01/1980 etc)
**/

public static int getAge(Date dateOfBirth) {

    Calendar today = Calendar.getInstance();
    Calendar birthDate = Calendar.getInstance();

    int age = 0;

    birthDate.setTime(dateOfBirth);
    if (birthDate.after(today)) {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can't be born in the future");
    }

    age = today.get(Calendar.YEAR) - birthDate.get(Calendar.YEAR);

    // If birth date is greater than todays date (after 2 days adjustment of leap year) then decrement age one year   
    if ( (birthDate.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) - today.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) > 3) ||
            (birthDate.get(Calendar.MONTH) > today.get(Calendar.MONTH ))){
        age--;

     // If birth date and todays date are of same month and birth day of month is greater than todays day of month then decrement age
    }else if ((birthDate.get(Calendar.MONTH) == today.get(Calendar.MONTH )) &&
              (birthDate.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) > today.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH ))){
        age--;
    }

    return age;
}

import java.io.*;

class AgeCalculator
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        InputStreamReader ins=new InputStreamReader(System.in);
        BufferedReader hey=new BufferedReader(ins);

        try
        {
            System.out.println("Please enter your name: ");
            String name=hey.readLine();

            System.out.println("Please enter your birth date: ");
            String date=hey.readLine();

            System.out.println("please enter your birth month:");
            String month=hey.readLine();

            System.out.println("please enter your birth year:");
            String year=hey.readLine();

            System.out.println("please enter current year:");
            String cYear=hey.readLine();

            int bDate = Integer.parseInt(date);
            int bMonth = Integer.parseInt(month);
            int bYear = Integer.parseInt(year);
            int ccYear=Integer.parseInt(cYear);

            int age;

            age = ccYear-bYear;
            int totalMonth=12;
            int yourMonth=totalMonth-bMonth;

            System.out.println(" Hi " + name + " your are " + age + " years " + yourMonth + " months old ");
        }
        catch(IOException err)
        {
            System.out.println("");
        }
    }
}

What about this one?

public Integer calculateAge(Date date) {
    if (date == null) {
        return null;
    }
    Calendar cal1 = Calendar.getInstance();
    cal1.setTime(date);
    Calendar cal2 = Calendar.getInstance();
    int i = 0;
    while (cal1.before(cal2)) {
        cal1.add(Calendar.YEAR, 1);
        i += 1;
    }
    return i;
}

Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
Calendar dob = Calendar.getInstance();
dob.setTime(...);
if (dob.after(now)) {
  throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can't be born in the future");
}
int year1 = now.get(Calendar.YEAR);
int year2 = dob.get(Calendar.YEAR);
int age = year1 - year2;
int month1 = now.get(Calendar.MONTH);
int month2 = dob.get(Calendar.MONTH);
if (month2 > month1) {
  age--;
} else if (month1 == month2) {
  int day1 = now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
  int day2 = dob.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
  if (day2 > day1) {
    age--;
  }
}
// age is now correct

Modern answer and overview

a) Java-8 (java.time-package)

LocalDate start = LocalDate.of(1996, 2, 29);
LocalDate end = LocalDate.of(2014, 2, 28); // use for age-calculation: LocalDate.now()
long years = ChronoUnit.YEARS.between(start, end);
System.out.println(years); // 17

Note that the expression LocalDate.now() is implicitly related to the system timezone (which is often overlooked by users). For clarity it is generally better to use the overloaded method now(ZoneId.of("Europe/Paris")) specifying an explicit timezone (here "Europe/Paris" as example). If the system timezone is requested then my personal preference is to write LocalDate.now(ZoneId.systemDefault()) to make the relation to the system timezone clearer. This is more writing effort but makes reading easier.

b) Joda-Time

Please note that the proposed and accepted Joda-Time-solution yields a different computation result for the dates shown above (a rare case), namely:

LocalDate birthdate = new LocalDate(1996, 2, 29);
LocalDate now = new LocalDate(2014, 2, 28); // test, in real world without args
Years age = Years.yearsBetween(birthdate, now);
System.out.println(age.getYears()); // 18

I consider this as a small bug but the Joda-team has a different view on this weird behaviour and does not want to fix it (weird because the day-of-month of end date is smaller than of start date so the year should be one less). See also this closed issue.

c) java.util.Calendar etc.

For comparison see the various other answers. I would not recommend using these outdated classes at all because the resulting code is still errorprone in some exotic cases and/or way too complex considering the fact that the original question sounds so simple. In year 2015 we have really better libraries.

d) About Date4J:

The proposed solution is simple but will sometimes fail in case of leap years. Just evaluating the day of year is not reliable.

e) My own library Time4J:

This works similar to Java-8-solution. Just replace LocalDate by PlainDate and ChronoUnit.YEARS by CalendarUnit.YEARS. However, getting "today" requires an explicit timezone reference.

PlainDate start = PlainDate.of(1996, 2, 29);
PlainDate end = PlainDate.of(2014, 2, 28);
// use for age-calculation (today): 
// => end = SystemClock.inZonalView(EUROPE.PARIS).today();
// or in system timezone: end = SystemClock.inLocalView().today();
long years = CalendarUnit.YEARS.between(start, end);
System.out.println(years); // 17

With Java 8, we can calculate a person age with one line of code:

public int calCAge(int year, int month,int days){             
    return LocalDate.now().minus(Period.of(year, month, days)).getYear();         
}

import java.time.LocalDate;
import java.time.ZoneId;
import java.time.Period;

public class AgeCalculator1 {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        LocalDate start = LocalDate.of(1970, 2, 23);
        LocalDate end = LocalDate.now(ZoneId.systemDefault());

        Period p = Period.between(start, end);
        //The output of the program is :
        //45 years 6 months and 6 days.
        System.out.print(p.getYears() + " year" + (p.getYears() > 1 ? "s " : " ") );
        System.out.print(p.getMonths() + " month" + (p.getMonths() > 1 ? "s and " : " and ") );
        System.out.print(p.getDays() + " day" + (p.getDays() > 1 ? "s.\n" : ".\n") );
    }//method main ends here.
}

I simply use the milliseconds in a year constant value to my advantage:

Date now = new Date();
long timeBetween = now.getTime() - age.getTime();
double yearsBetween = timeBetween / 3.15576e+10;
int age = (int) Math.floor(yearsBetween);

public int getAge(String birthdate, String today){
    // birthdate = "1986-02-22"
    // today = "2014-09-16"

    // String class has a split method for splitting a string
    // split(<delimiter>)
    // birth[0] = 1986 as string
    // birth[1] = 02 as string
    // birth[2] = 22 as string
    // now[0] = 2014 as string
    // now[1] = 09 as string
    // now[2] = 16 as string
    // **birth** and **now** arrays are automatically contains 3 elements 
    // split method here returns 3 elements because of yyyy-MM-dd value
    String birth[] = birthdate.split("-");
    String now[] = today.split("-");
    int age = 0;

    // let us convert string values into integer values
    // with the use of Integer.parseInt(<string>)
    int ybirth = Integer.parseInt(birth[0]);
    int mbirth = Integer.parseInt(birth[1]);
    int dbirth = Integer.parseInt(birth[2]);

    int ynow = Integer.parseInt(now[0]);
    int mnow = Integer.parseInt(now[1]);
    int dnow = Integer.parseInt(now[2]);

    if(ybirth < ynow){ // has age if birth year is lesser than current year
        age = ynow - ybirth; // let us get the interval of birth year and current year
        if(mbirth == mnow){ // when birth month comes, it's ok to have age = ynow - ybirth if
            if(dbirth > dnow) // birth day is coming. need to subtract 1 from age. not yet a bday
                age--;
        }else if(mbirth > mnow){ age--; } // birth month is comming. need to subtract 1 from age            
    }

    return age;
}

It's perhaps surprising to note that you don't need to know how many days or months there are in a year or how many days are in those months, likewise, you don't need to know about leap years, leap seconds, or any of that stuff using this simple, 100% accurate method:

public static int age(Date birthday, Date date) {
    DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
    int d1 = Integer.parseInt(formatter.format(birthday));
    int d2 = Integer.parseInt(formatter.format(date));
    int age = (d2-d1)/10000;
    return age;
}

String dateofbirth has the date of birth. and format is whatever (defined in the following line):

org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormatter formatter =  org.joda.time.format.DateTimeFormat.forPattern("mm/dd/yyyy");

Here is how to format:

org.joda.time.DateTime birthdateDate = formatter.parseDateTime(dateofbirth );
org.joda.time.DateMidnight birthdate = new         org.joda.time.DateMidnight(birthdateDate.getYear(), birthdateDate.getMonthOfYear(), birthdateDate.getDayOfMonth() );
org.joda.time.DateTime now = new org.joda.time.DateTime();
org.joda.time.Years age = org.joda.time.Years.yearsBetween(birthdate, now);
java.lang.String ageStr = java.lang.String.valueOf (age.getYears());

Variable ageStr will have the years.

This is an improved version of the one above... considering that you want age to be an 'int'. because sometimes you don't want to fill your program with a bunch of libraries.

public int getAge(Date dateOfBirth) {
    int age = 0;
    Calendar born = Calendar.getInstance();
    Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
    if(dateOfBirth!= null) {
        now.setTime(new Date());
        born.setTime(dateOfBirth);  
        if(born.after(now)) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can't be born in the future");
        }
        age = now.get(Calendar.YEAR) - born.get(Calendar.YEAR);             
        if(now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) < born.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR))  {
            age-=1;
        }
    }  
    return age;
}

Check out Joda, which simplifies date/time calculations (Joda is also the basis of the new standard Java date/time apis, so you'll be learning a soon-to-be-standard API).

EDIT: Java 8 has something very similar and is worth checking out.

e.g.

LocalDate birthdate = new LocalDate (1970, 1, 20);
LocalDate now = new LocalDate();
Years age = Years.yearsBetween(birthdate, now);

which is as simple as you could want. The pre-Java 8 stuff is (as you've identified) somewhat unintuitive.

Try to copy this one in your code, then use the method to get the age.

public static int getAge(Date birthday)
{
    GregorianCalendar today = new GregorianCalendar();
    GregorianCalendar bday = new GregorianCalendar();
    GregorianCalendar bdayThisYear = new GregorianCalendar();

    bday.setTime(birthday);
    bdayThisYear.setTime(birthday);
    bdayThisYear.set(Calendar.YEAR, today.get(Calendar.YEAR));

    int age = today.get(Calendar.YEAR) - bday.get(Calendar.YEAR);

    if(today.getTimeInMillis() < bdayThisYear.getTimeInMillis())
        age--;

    return age;
}

The fields birth and effect are both date fields:

Calendar bir = Calendar.getInstance();
bir.setTime(birth);
int birthNm = bir.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR);
int birthYear = bir.get(Calendar.YEAR);
Calendar eff = Calendar.getInstance();
eff.setTime(effect);

This basically a modification of John O's solution without using depreciated methods. I spent a fair amount of time trying to get his code to work in in my code. Maybe this will save others that time.

The correct answer using JodaTime is:

public int getAge() {
    Years years = Years.yearsBetween(new LocalDate(getBirthDate()), new LocalDate());
    return years.getYears();
}

You could even shorten it into one line if you like. I copied the idea from BrianAgnew's answer, but I believe this is more correct as you see from the comments there (and it answers the question exactly).

Here is the java code to calculate age in year, month and days.

public static AgeModel calculateAge(long birthDate) {
    int years = 0;
    int months = 0;
    int days = 0;

    if (birthDate != 0) {
        //create calendar object for birth day
        Calendar birthDay = Calendar.getInstance();
        birthDay.setTimeInMillis(birthDate);

        //create calendar object for current day
        Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
        Calendar current = Calendar.getInstance();
        //Get difference between years
        years = now.get(Calendar.YEAR) - birthDay.get(Calendar.YEAR);

        //get months
        int currMonth = now.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1;
        int birthMonth = birthDay.get(Calendar.MONTH) + 1;

        //Get difference between months
        months = currMonth - birthMonth;

        //if month difference is in negative then reduce years by one and calculate the number of months.
        if (months < 0) {
            years--;
            months = 12 - birthMonth + currMonth;
        } else if (months == 0 && now.get(Calendar.DATE) < birthDay.get(Calendar.DATE)) {
            years--;
            months = 11;
        }

        //Calculate the days
        if (now.get(Calendar.DATE) > birthDay.get(Calendar.DATE))
            days = now.get(Calendar.DATE) - birthDay.get(Calendar.DATE);
        else if (now.get(Calendar.DATE) < birthDay.get(Calendar.DATE)) {
            int today = now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
            now.add(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
            days = now.getActualMaximum(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) - birthDay.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH) + today;
        } else {
            days = 0;
            if (months == 12) {
                years++;
                months = 0;
            }
        }
    }

    //Create new Age object
    return new AgeModel(days, months, years);
}

With the date4j library :

int age = today.getYear() - birthdate.getYear();
if(today.getDayOfYear() < birthdate.getDayOfYear()){
  age = age - 1; 
}

public int getAge(Date dateOfBirth) 
{
    Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
    Calendar dob = Calendar.getInstance();

    dob.setTime(dateOfBirth);

    if (dob.after(now)) 
    {
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can't be born in the future");
    }

    int age = now.get(Calendar.YEAR) - dob.get(Calendar.YEAR);

    if (now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR) < dob.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR)) 
    {
        age--;
    }

    return age;
}

If you are using GWT you will be limited to using java.util.Date, here is a method that takes the date as integers, but still uses java.util.Date:

public int getAge(int year, int month, int day) {
    Date now = new Date();
    int nowMonth = now.getMonth()+1;
    int nowYear = now.getYear()+1900;
    int result = nowYear - year;

    if (month > nowMonth) {
        result--;
    }
    else if (month == nowMonth) {
        int nowDay = now.getDate();

        if (day > nowDay) {
            result--;
        }
    }
    return result;
}

Easiest way without any libraries:

    long today = new Date().getTime();
    long diff = today - birth;
    long age = diff / DateUtils.YEAR_IN_MILLIS;

I use this piece of code for age calculation ,Hope this helps ..no libraries used

private static DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd", Locale.getDefault());

public static int calculateAge(String date) {

    int age = 0;
    try {
        Date date1 = dateFormat.parse(date);
        Calendar now = Calendar.getInstance();
        Calendar dob = Calendar.getInstance();
        dob.setTime(date1);
        if (dob.after(now)) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Can't be born in the future");
        }
        int year1 = now.get(Calendar.YEAR);
        int year2 = dob.get(Calendar.YEAR);
        age = year1 - year2;
        int month1 = now.get(Calendar.MONTH);
        int month2 = dob.get(Calendar.MONTH);
        if (month2 > month1) {
            age--;
        } else if (month1 == month2) {
            int day1 = now.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
            int day2 = dob.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
            if (day2 > day1) {
                age--;
            }
        }
    } catch (ParseException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return age ;
}

Elegant, seemingly correct, timestamp difference based variant of Yaron Ronen solution.

I am including a unit test to prove when and why it is not correct. It is impossible due (to possibly) different number of leap days (and seconds) in any timestamp difference. The discrepancy should be max +-1 day (and one second) for this algorithm, see test2(), whereas Yaron Ronen solution based on completely constant assumption of timeDiff / MILLI_SECONDS_YEAR can differ 10 days for a 40ty year old, nevertheless this variant is incorrect too.

It is tricky, because this improved variant, using formula diffAsCalendar.get(Calendar.YEAR) - 1970, returns correct results most of the time, as number of leap years in on average same between two dates.

/**
 * Compute person's age based on timestamp difference between birth date and given date
 * and prove it is INCORRECT approach.
 */
public class AgeUsingTimestamps {

public int getAge(Date today, Date dateOfBirth) {
    long diffAsLong = today.getTime() - dateOfBirth.getTime();
    Calendar diffAsCalendar = Calendar.getInstance();
    diffAsCalendar.setTimeInMillis(diffAsLong);
    return diffAsCalendar.get(Calendar.YEAR) - 1970; // base time where timestamp=0, precisely 1/1/1970 00:00:00 
}

    final static DateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd.MM.yyy HH:mm:ss");

    @Test
    public void test1() throws Exception {
        Date dateOfBirth = df.parse("10.1.2000 00:00:00");
        assertEquals(87, getAge(df.parse("08.1.2088 23:59:59"), dateOfBirth));
        assertEquals(87, getAge(df.parse("09.1.2088 23:59:59"), dateOfBirth));
        assertEquals(88, getAge(df.parse("10.1.2088 00:00:01"), dateOfBirth));
    }

    @Test
    public void test2() throws Exception {
        // between 2000 and 2021 was 6 leap days
        // but between 1970 (base time) and 1991 there was only 5 leap days
        // therefore age is switched one day earlier
            // See http://www.onlineconversion.com/leapyear.htm
        Date dateOfBirth = df.parse("10.1.2000 00:00:00");
        assertEquals(20, getAge(df.parse("08.1.2021 23:59:59"), dateOfBirth));
        assertEquals(20, getAge(df.parse("09.1.2021 23:59:59"), dateOfBirth)); // ERROR! returns incorrect age=21 here
        assertEquals(21, getAge(df.parse("10.1.2021 00:00:01"), dateOfBirth));
    }
}