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.