Storing File Names AND Date/Time Created To Sort Them

[Ben Hoen]

Hi all,

I have used .filelist (SSC) to pull in names of files in folders and then to sort through them for various purposes.

I have a related problem with files of the same or similar names in files that have different "Dates/Times Created" values.

For example I might have:
"file x", created 11/2/16;
"file x (1)", created 11/4/16, and
"file x (2)", created 11/8/16.

In this case it is "file x (2)" that I want to retrieve, because it is the most recent.

Similarly I might have the following:

"file y", created 11/8/16 11:40:00 AM;
"file y (1)", created 11/8/16 10:20:00 AM, and
"file y (2)", created 11/2/16.

And it would be "file y" that I want to retrieve, even the the dates are the same between it and "file y (1)", but the time is more recent.

So, the hope would be that I could retrieve the most recent file of any set with the file name "file x*" and "file y*".

I can manage building the code to sort through the names but do not know how to/if I can pull in creation dates/times of files to do the same with those.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks, in advance, for any advice you might have.

Best,

Ben Hoen
Berkeley Lab

[Eric Haavind-Berman]

Hi Ben,

It looks like dirlist might be the way to go.

Looking at the help file, one could write:

cd "C:\mydir"
dirlist "*myfile*"

// set an initial minimum date very high
local min_date = 999999999999

// loop over all files and find the newest
forvalues i = 1/`r(nfiles)' {
    local date : word `i' of `r(fdates)'
    local times : word `i' of `r(ftimes)'
    
    // mess around with these locals until you have a yyyymmddHHMM
    
    local yyyymmddHHMM = some date
    
    // if this local is the smallest, then keep that value
    if `yyyymmddHHMM' < `min_date' {
        local min_file : word 2 of `r(fnames)'
        local min_date `yyyymmddHHMM'
    }

}
display("`min_file'")

Best,
Eric

[Ben Hoen]

Eric,

This is perfect. Once I get something working with it i will post that into this thread.

Thanks!

Ben