Age Calculation in tcl

[David Harrison]

I’m trying to use tcl to calculate an age in years. The format of the birthdate is dd/mm/yyyy where the day and month can be a single digit (eg 2/3/1947). I’m extracting the last 4 characters as the year using a string function. When I try to subtract the year from the current year, I get an error .

Any help appreciated.

Dave

Topic

[Jonathan Presnell]

try this:

set birthYear [lindex [split $birthYear /] 2]

set yrsOld [expr ($currentYear – $birthYear)]

[David Harrison]

Still having problems. Here’s my code, in this example xlateInVals = {3/4/1953 00:00:00}

Code:

######################################################################
# Name: XltVPBulkAge
# Purpose: Get age in years from bulk data file
# UPoC type: xltp
# Args: none
# Notes: All data is presented through special variables.  The initial
# upvar in this proc provides access to the required variables.
#
# This proc style only works when called from a code fragment
# within an XLT.
#

proc XltVPBulkAge {} {
   upvar xlateId       xlateId
 xlateInList   xlateInList
 xlateInTypes  xlateInTypes
 xlateInVals   xlateInVals
 xlateOutList  xlateOutList
 xlateOutTypes xlateOutTypes
 xlateOutVals  xlateOutVals
 set byr [lindex [split $xlateInVals /] 2]
 set byr [lindex $byr 0]
 set nyr expr[clock format [clock seconds] -format “%Y”]
 set age [expr “$nyr – $byr”]
 set xlateOutVals $age
}

errorInfo:

can’t use non-numeric string as operand of “-“

   while executing

“expr {$nyr – $byr}”

   (procedure “XltVPBulkAge” line 6)

   invoked from within

“XltVPBulkAge”

[Charlie Bursell]

You have to check for those times when your input may be empty or non-numeric.

Try this

set inp [lindex $xlateInVals 0]

# If not a valid date/time the clock scan command fails

if {[catch {clock format [clock scan $inp] -format %Y} birthYear]} {

       # Issue an error message and leave age blank

        echo nnReceived invalid birthdatenn

        set age {}

} else {

       # Valid birthdate

       set nowYear [clock format [clock seconds] -format %Y]

       set age [expr $nowYear – $birthYear]

}

set xlateOutVals

[David Harrison]

I’ve got it to work now thanks. I spotted an error in my code:

Code:

set nyr expr[clock format [clock seconds] -format “%Y”]

Should be:

Code:

set nyr [clock format [clock seconds] -format “%Y”]

[Barbi]

set inp [lindex $xlateInVals 0]

# If not a valid date/time the clock scan command fails

if {[catch {clock format [clock scan $inp] -format %Y} birthYear]} {

      # Issue an error message and leave age blank

       echo nnReceived invalid birthdatenn

       set age {}

} else {

      # Valid birthdate

      set nowYear [clock format [clock seconds] -format %Y]

      set age [expr $nowYear – $birthYear]

}

#set xlateOutVals

set xlateOutVals

1 3]]

echo pt age = $age

pt age = -188313

Does this calculate the days?  Why can’t I get the $age to stink down to position 1-3 only?

[Levy Lazarre]

Hello, David

Please note that your code snippet as shown is missing a step. You cannot just subtract the birth year from the current year to obtain the age in years. You also have to account for whether the person has had a birthday yet this year.

With the example you have given (3/4/1953), the code would return an age of 65, which is wrong because the person has not reached a birthday yet this year and is still age 64.

Therefore you must also compare the day of birth (3/4) to the current day and subtract 1 from the age if the day of birth is greater (birthday not celebrated yet this year).

[Robert Kersemakers]

Isn’t the proc ‘gc_calculateAge’ part of the standard Cloverleaf installation?

I’m never sure whether we got stuff from our Dutch supplier, or whether it’s part of standard Cloverleaf.

Zuyderland Medisch Centrum; Heerlen/Sittard; The Netherlands

[Levy Lazarre]

Robert,

To my knowledge, this proc is not part of the standard Cloverleaf installation. You must have a supplemental library.

[David Barr]

Rather than trying to figure out if the current date is before or after the birthday, why not take the current time in seconds since the epoch ([clock seconds]), subtract the birthdate in seconds since the epoch ([clock scan $birthdate], which may be negative if the patient was born before the epoch), and divide the result by the number of seconds in a year?

[David Barr]

Actually that wouldn’t work because some years are longer than others. Maybe subtracting the years and figure out if the patient has reached the birthdate this year is best.

[Robert Kersemakers]

gc_calculateAge is indeed part of a package supplied only to the Dutch market. Can’t share them with the world.

Googled it and found this proc, which should give the age in years as well:

Code:

# yearsBetween —
#
# Returns the years elapsed between two given timestamps
#
# Arguments:
#  oldertime
#  newertime
proc yearsBetween {oldertime newertime} {
   set i 1

   while {$oldertime < [clock scan "$i year ago" -base $newertime]} {
       incr i
   }

   return [expr {$i – 1}]
}

Example:

Code:

set date1 [clock scan 1987-01-18]
set date2 [clock seconds]

puts [yearsBetween $date1 $date2]

Zuyderland Medisch Centrum; Heerlen/Sittard; The Netherlands

[Author]

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