Hello - I am trying to write a batch file to find the newest folder under a CERTAIN directory. I then want to cd to that dir and get a list of files. I'm having trouble with the first part....finding the newest folder. Does anybody have any tips?

Thanks,
JenI can see a way to do this in a mix of batch and C++, however I'd just keep it all in C++ with system calls. The mix of batch and C++ would be to use the C++ program to read in from a text file the output of DIR>readthis.txt and compare date/time stamps on folders to find the newest. Then dynamically write the batch file to CD to that directory. Not sure if this can be done in pure batch.I will be watching this to see if anyone can do this in batch.If you filter out the directories and sort them descending, the newest one will be the first in the list. Used last modified date (default) as the sort criteria but could be changed to creation date by adding the /tc switch:

CODE: [Select]@echo off
for /f "tokens=* delims=" %%i in ('dir /ad /b /o-d ^| find /v ". "') do (
cd %%~dpni
dir
goto :eof
)

Quote from: Sidewinder on May 20, 2011, 04:26:42 PM

If you filter out the directories and sort them descending, the newest one will be the first in the list.

Code: [Select]dir /ad /b /o-d

Using /O-D, the newest one will be the last in the list. It's /OD which sorts dates from earlier to later. /O-D sorts later to earlier. Using this, you can iterate through all the directories with FOR, assigning each name in turn to a variable. After the loop (which can be a one liner) the variable will hold the name of the last in the list, which will be the newest by date. Thus the Goto is avoided.

Does the OP wish to filter out junction points?

Something like the below would just get the subfolders under a folder

Code: [Select]@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-4* delims= " %%A in ( ' dir /tc /ad /od ^| find "<DIR>" ^| find /v "<JUNCTION>" ' ) do if not "%%E"==".." if not "%%E"=="." set NewestFolder=%%E
Echo Newest folder is "%NewestFolder%"

In any case, seems like a lot of code to eliminate a goto.

In any case, seems like a lot of code to eliminate a goto. NT batch code has a limited instruction set, might as well use them.

In any case, you only needed the goto because you got the sort order around the wrong way.

The sort order was purposely chosen to save the time of iterating the entire directory contents.

Also curious why eliminate the junction points? Could be wrong, but don't they act as links to a directory, making the directory accessible by using an alias?

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