Hello.

Perhaps this isn't really a .NET question, but I'm hoping there is an
easy solution within .NET/VC++.

The problem:  I have a directory full of different types of data files
and I need to grab the latest copy of data to load into my program.

Example:

ABC123.txt    01-01-2004    1:01a
ABC124.txt    01-02-2004    1:02a
ABC125.txt    01-03-2004    1:03a
ABC126.txt    01-04-2004    1:04a
ABC127.txt    01-04-2004    1:02a
XYZ123.txt    01-01-2004    1:01a
XYZ124.txt    01-02-2004    1:02a
XYZ125.txt    01-03-2004    1:04a
... and so on.

I want to be able to search this directory, detect the latest ABC*.txt
file, and then open it.  The filename is not coded with the date
information - that is the ABC123.txt filename has no significance vs
ABC124.txt.  So, I have to retrieve it from the date/time stamp on the
file.  In this case, the goal would be to identify the ABC126.txt file
generated on 01-04-2004 at 1:04a as it is the latest copy of the ABC*
files.

In order to accomplish this - I use a MS-DOS 'dir' command called by
system (as follows):

sprintf((char *)&shellCommand,"dir c:\\files\\ABC*.txt /b /o-d >
filelisting.txt");
system(shellCommand);
in = fopen("metarfiles.txt","r");
fscanf(in,"%s",&filename);
fclose(in);

I then open 'filename' and can access the data I want.  This works
fine, but is a giant kludge.  Nothing like seeing the DOS command
shell pop on top of my program for a brief second to remind me my
programming skills are not that good...

Anyway, there has to be an easier way to do this without leaving
.NET/VC++, right?

If it helps, the directory name is hardcoded, I do not have to
traverse the C:\ directories to find my subdirectory.

Thanks,
-Nathan