Fantastic - Borislav

this new sort you provided actually landed in the middle of the dates - don't know why that is.

ASORT(ladir,3,-1,1,1)

So I opted for version two which works beautifully. I understand the what you did reading it as code - very clever

many many thnks
karen


>>>>I'm not getting very far with this. Can anyone please lend a hand and fill in the blanks where they can
>>>>I have a vault full of backup directories each start with FP and end with date and time reference.
>>>>I want to access the latest directory in the group - open the directory and copy all the files within to a temp directory
>>>>then move to the next directory and do the same.
>>>>
>>>>Here is what I have - in over my head here I'm afraid - thanks for any help.
>>>>k
>>>>

>>>>fso = CREATEOBJECT("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
>>>>lnNum =adir(ladir,'c:\vault\FP*','D')  &&& 'Directory names that start with FP
>>>>	asort(ladir,3)  &&& XXX i need reverse sort so that latest directory shows up first
>>>>
>>>>	for each ladir in 'c:\vault'  &&& XXX  go through each directory
>>>>
>>>>        open directory ???
>>>>    
>>>>	FSO.CopyFile()  &&& copy all files in directory to c:/temp 
>>>>	
>>>>endfor
>>>>

>>>
>>>

>>>lnNum =adir(ladir,'c:\vault\FP*','D')  && 'Directory names that start with FP
>>>asort(ladir,3)                         && XXX i need reverse sort so that latest directory shows up first
>>>FOR EACH lcdir IN ladir                && XXX  go through each directory
>>>    lcSource = ADDBS(lcdir)+"*.*"
>>>    COPY FILE (lcSource) TO "c:\temp\*.*"
>>>ENDFOR
>>>

>>>
>>>NOT TESTED!
>>
>>Thanks Borislav
>>I have tinkered with your solution (which was great by the way) and found I needed to define the new directory. Thus added it works in copying the files in that directory. The only remaining task is to reverse the order. Any ideas on how to do that. I can only find asort(ladir,3) option for date sort which yields oldest files first. I need the newest directory to start the list. Many thanks. K
>>
>>

>>nwdir='c:\vault\'
>>lnNum =adir(ladir,'c:\vault\FP*','D')  && 'Directory names that start with FP
>>asort(ladir,3)                         && XXX i need reverse sort so that latest directory shows up first
>>FOR EACH lcdir IN ladir               
>>      lcSource = nwdir+ADDBS(lcdir)+"*.*"
>>    COPY FILE (lcSource) TO "c:\temp\*.*"
>>ENDFOR
>>

>
>
>
>
>Two choices:
>

>...
>ASORT(asd,3,-1,1,1)
>...
>

>
>or:
>

>nNum =adir(ladir,'c:\vault\FP*','D')  && 'Directory names that start with FP
>asort(ladir,3)                         && XXX i need reverse sort so that latest directory shows up first
>FOR lnFor = nNum TO 1 STEP -1 
>    IF NOT LEFT(ladir[lnFor,1],1) == "."
>       lcSource = nwdir+ADDBS(ladir[lnFor,1])+"*.*"
>       ...
>    ENDIF
>NEXT
>