Nant - Get Newest Folder - nant

Question

Is there a relatively simple way in nant, without writing a custom task, to get the name of the newest folder in a certain directory? Recursion is not needed. I have been trying to do it with directory::get-creation-time and a foreach loop and if statements, yada yada. It's too complex, and I'm about to create a custom task instead. However, I suspect there is some simpler way to do it via existing nant features.

Answer 1

I believe you're correct in stating that doing this in a pure nant fashion might pose to be messy, especially the way properties work in nant. If you don't want to write a custom task, you can always use the script task. For example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project name="testing" basedir=".">
<script language="C#" prefix="test" >
<code>
<![CDATA[
[Function("find-newest-dir")]
public static string FindNewestDir( string startDir ) {
string theNewestDir = string.Empty;
DateTime theCreateTime = new DateTime();
DateTime theLastCreateTime = new DateTime();
string[] theDirs = Directory.GetDirectories( startDir );
for ( int theCurrentIdx = 0; theCurrentIdx < theDirs.Length; ++theCurrentIdx )
{
if ( theCurrentIdx != 0 )
{
DateTime theCurrentDirCreateTime = Directory.GetCreationTime( theDirs[ theCurrentIdx ] );
if ( theCurrentDirCreateTime >= theCreateTime )
{
theNewestDir = theDirs[ theCurrentIdx ];
theCreateTime = theCurrentDirCreateTime;
}
}
else
{
theNewestDir = theDirs[ theCurrentIdx ];
theCreateTime = Directory.GetCreationTime( theDirs[ theCurrentIdx ] );
}
}
return theNewestDir;
}
]]>
</code>
</script>
<property name="dir" value="" overwrite="false"/>
<echo message="The newest directory is: ${test::find-newest-dir( dir )}"/>
</project>
With this, one should be able to call the function to get the newest directory. The implementation of the actual function could be changed to be anything (optimized a bit more or whatever), but I've included a quick one for reference on how to use the script task. It produces output like the following:
nant -D:dir=c:\
NAnt 0.85 (Build 0.85.2478.0; release; 10/14/2006)
Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Gerry Shaw
http://nant.sourceforge.net
Buildfile: file:///C:/tmp/NAnt.build
Target framework: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
[script] Scanning assembly "jdrgmbuy" for extensions.
[echo] The newest directory is: C:\tmp
BUILD SUCCEEDED
Total time: 0.3 seconds.