Format A TimeSpan With Years
public string GetAgeText(DateTime birthDate)
{
const double ApproxDaysPerMonth = 30.4375;
const double ApproxDaysPerYear = 365.25;
/*
The above are the average days per month/year over a normal 4 year period
We use these approximations as they are more accurate for the next century or so
After that you may want to switch over to these 400 year approximations
ApproxDaysPerMonth = 30.436875
ApproxDaysPerYear = 365.2425
How to get theese numbers:
The are 365 days in a year, unless it is a leepyear.
Leepyear is every forth year if Year % 4 = 0
unless year % 100 == 1
unless if year % 400 == 0 then it is a leep year.
This gives us 97 leep years in 400 years.
So 400 * 365 + 97 = 146097 days.
146097 / 400 = 365.2425
146097 / 400 / 12 = 30,436875
Due to the nature of the leap year calculation, on this side of the year 2100
you can assume every 4th year is a leap year and use the other approximatiotions
*/
//Calculate the span in days
int iDays = (DateTime.Now - birthDate).Days;
//Calculate years as an integer division
int iYear = (int)(iDays / ApproxDaysPerYear);
//Decrease remaing days
iDays -= (int)(iYear * ApproxDaysPerYear);
//Calculate months as an integer division
int iMonths = (int)(iDays / ApproxDaysPerMonth);
//Decrease remaing days
iDays -= (int)(iMonths * ApproxDaysPerMonth);
//Return the result as an string
return string.Format("{0} years, {1} months, {2} days", iYear, iMonths, iDays);
}
A TimeSpan
doesn't have a sensible concept of "years" because it depends on the start and end point. (Months is similar - how many months are there in 29 days? Well, it depends...)
To give a shameless plug, my Noda Time project makes this really simple though:
using System;
using NodaTime;
public class Test
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
LocalDate start = new LocalDate(2010, 6, 19);
LocalDate end = new LocalDate(2013, 4, 11);
Period period = Period.Between(start, end,
PeriodUnits.Years | PeriodUnits.Days);
Console.WriteLine("Between {0} and {1} are {2} years and {3} days",
start, end, period.Years, period.Days);
}
}
Output:
Between 19 June 2010 and 11 April 2013 are 2 years and 296 days