Template:Death date and age/doc

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This template returns a person's date of death and age at that date. The year, month, and day of death are required, as is the birth year. The month and day of birth are optional.

Note that {{event date and age}} is a redirect to this template.

Syntax

To display the death date with age

{{death date and age
|year of death|month of death|day of death
|year of birth|month of birth|day of birth
|additional parameters}}
Formats
{{death date and age |yyyy|mm|dd |yyyy|mm|dd |df=yes}}
{{death date and age |yyyy|mm|dd |yyyy|mm|dd |mf=yes}}

Examples when all parameters are known

{{death date and age |1993|2|24 |1941|4|12 |df=yes}} returns:  24 February 1993(1993-02-24) (aged 51)
{{death date and age |1993|2|24 |1941|4|12 |mf=yes}} returns:  February 24, 1993(1993-02-24) (aged 51)

Examples when only death-related parameters are known

{{death date and age |1993|2|24 |1941|4 |df=yes}} returns:  24 February 1993(1993-02-24) (aged 51)
{{death date and age |1993|2|24 |1941 |mf=yes}} returns:  February 24, 1993(1993-02-24) (aged 51–52)

When the exact birth date is unknown, the template will calculate the age at death and provide a range of two possible ages, if necessary.

The template will generate an error when required parameters are left blank, or when parameters are invalid. Examples of invalid parameters include impossible human ages, months greater than 12 or less than 1, days greater than 31 or less than 1, and parameters in the wrong order.

"day first" (df) and "month first" options

The df (day first) parameter indicates the intended date format to display. It is switched on by setting it to "y" or "yes" e.g. df=yes or df=y.

The default output of this template is the month before the day (American-based style). This default may not be appropriate in articles about people from parts of the world where the day precedes the month in a date (e.g. Europe). In such cases the parameter df should be set.

It is possible to use similar parameter "mf" to stress the month-first format so that relying on the default does not lead an editor or bot to change the format to an unintended value; however, it is ignored by the template itself. (So, should both parameters be mistakenly used at once, df takes precedence.)

Examples:

{{death date and age |1993|2|24 |1941|4|12 |df=yes}} displays  "24 February 1993(1993-02-24) (aged 51)"
{{death date and age |1993|2|24 |1941|4|12 |mf=yes}} displays  "February 24, 1993(1993-02-24) (aged 51)"

Alternate template when specific birth date is unknown

When only the year of a person's death is known, or if it is desired not to state a person's full dates of birth and death (e.g. for privacy), use the template {{death year and age}} instead. See below for other templates that perform similar functions.

FAQ

  • Q: Why don't these templates add categories such as "Births in [Year]" to articles where they are used?
A: Because they are sometimes used for dates in lists of people (e.g. members of sports teams).

Background

The idea of using the template, as with {{birth date and age}} etc., is to allow for the inclusion of hidden metadata to be used, indexed or searched by software tools. However, as of October 2008 this template does not include any such metadata and never has since it was founded in December 2006. The apparent reason is that the hCard microformat, logically enough for an extension of "standard for electronic business cards", contains only "BDAY" field but nothing to do with a death. It is unclear when metadata standard for the dead will be developed and adopted. Until then, the template does nothing but format the input parameters.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools; see the monthly parameter usage report for this template.

TemplateData for Death date and age

This template returns a person's date of death and age at that date.

Template parameters

ParameterDescriptionTypeStatus
Year of death1

The year in which the person died

Numberrequired
Month of death2

The month (number) in which the person died

Numberrequired
Day of death3

The day (number) in which the person died

Numberrequired
Year of birth4

The year in which the person was born

Numberrequired
Month of birth5

The month (number) in which the person was born

Numberoptional
Day of birth6

The day (number) in which the person was born

Numberoptional
Day firstdf

When set to 'y' or 'yes', the date of death is output in a DMY format

Stringoptional
Month firstmf

When set to 'y' or 'yes', stresses that the default MDY date format is intended for the date of death

Stringoptional