Question

Hi I have many files in a folder. Those files have date and time in the file name in specific format. I need to extract the date from the name and then sort it by date in ascending order.
File Name example :-

format_type_2011-07-12-13-00-12.txt

Earlier I was using by createTime. But now requirement is changed.

var Files = new DirectoryInfo(FileDirectory).GetFiles()
                                                            .OrderBy(f => f.CreationTime)
                                                            .ToList();

How do i do it? Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

This should work:

var di = new DirectoryInfo(FileDirectory);
var Files = di.GetFiles()
              .OrderBy( f => f.Name.Substring(f.Name.LastIndexOf('_')+1)
              .ToList();

Since your file names (minus the format info) are already in ISO8601 order (year first, then month, then date, etc.) you can just sort based on the string w/o having to convert to a date.