Related toquery formula variable

Question

hi
gurus
my situation is , i am developing a query for hr MASTER DATA
HERE  I GOT ROW  BY NAME             DATE OF BIRTH (EMPLOYEE DOB)
NOW I WANT TO GET                               AGE ( of employee based on the  DOB)
HERE I AM THINKING OF USING VARIABLE LIKE  CURRENT MONTH   OR CURR DATEIF WE GET THIS  WE CAN SUBTRACT BY FORMULA     
    AGE - DOB
CAN ANY BODY HELP HOW TO  GET AGE ROW .
IF USING OF VARIABLE IS CORRECT THEN WHAT IS THE PROCEDURE .
THANKING U IN ADVANCE

Answer 1

Hi,
Formula Variable would be the first solution coming to the mind in such a case. But with a formula variable, you would be able to create key figure, but i think (not very sure) that you want it as a characteristic to drill down against the DOB.
Now if you want to go with formula variable, here is the approach.
Create a formula variable as replacement path of DOB (DATE type). Now in a formula, subtract it from system date. This would give you the number of days. Use Whole number(number of days/ 365) as the age in years. For months too with the year, it would be ((year*365) - number of days) / 30.
But if you need a characteristic value instead of a key figure, you can instead go for virtual characteristic. In that case, you need to include a characteristic in your cube, not map it in the transformations. Next, you write a BADI or CMOD routine to populate the characteristic during report run time, based on a similar logic as mentioned above. Virtual Characteristics are a bit performancce intensive too, so please be cautioned.
Hope it helps.
Thanks,
Abhishek.