As I was updating the about page on this blog today, I decided that I wanted to make my age in the following string dynamic: “I am a 31-year-old Texan”. After considering options, creating a shortcode seemed like a simple enough route. Here’s the code that I came up with:

/**
 * A simple shortcode for displaying a person's age within WordPress content. This was
 * created with an "about" in mind, so that I wouldn't have to keep updating my age. :)
 * 
 * Usage: [simple_age birthday="January 1 2020"]
 */
function simple_age_shortcode( $atts ) {
	if ( empty( $atts['birthday'] ) ) {
		return '';
	}
	
	// If the birthday couldn't be parsed, then show some numeric output at least ¯\_(?)_/¯
	$birthday = strtotime( $atts['birthday'] );
	if ( ! $birthday ) {
		return 0;
	}
	
	$time_diff  = time() - $birthday;
	$years_diff = floor( $time_diff / YEAR_IN_SECONDS );
	
	return intval( $years_diff );
}
add_shortcode( 'simple_age', 'simple_age_shortcode');

Then, in my about page, I modified the content to look like this:

I am a [simple_age birthday="January 1 2020"]-year-old Texan...

To add this code to your site, you can add it as a plugin, in the functions.php file of your theme, or you could use a plugin like Code Snippets (which is my favorite option for small bits of code like this).

If you land here, then hopefully you find this simple age shortcode for WordPress handy. ? If there’s some interest, I may consider adding the plugin to the core repo to make it easier for people to use the shortcode. Feel free to leave a comment below if you’d prefer that.