# Sorting text files by DateTime in content **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous\ **Tags:** start-page\ **Created:** [October 30, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://forum.katalon.com/t/sorting-text-files-by-datetime-in-content/80102 "2022-10-30T22:38:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kazurayam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/katalon/user_avatar/forum.katalon.com/kazurayam/32/333_2.png) [@kazurayam](https://forum.katalon.com/u/kazurayam)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2022, 10:38pm UTC](https://forum.katalon.com/t/sorting-text-files-by-datetime-in-content/80102/1 "2022-10-30T22:38:40Z")
I have made a GitHub project > **[GitHub - kazurayam/Dave\_Evers\_wants\_to\_sort\_files\_by\_content](https://github.com/kazurayam/Dave_Evers_wants_to_sort_files_by_content)** > > Contribute to kazurayam/Dave\_Evers\_wants\_to\_sort\_files\_by\_content development by creating an account on GitHub. This project was developed to propose a solution that was raised by Dave Evers in the Katalon Community forum at - [http://forum.katalon.com/t/how-do-i-decode-a-base64-encoded-url-from-a-test-email-using-katalon/79979/19](http://forum.katalon.com/t/how-do-i-decode-a-base64-encoded-url-from-a-test-email-using-katalon/79979/19) ## Problem to solve One day in the “Katalon Community” forum I was asked a question. The original poster asked as follows: - He has several hundreds of text files in a directory. Every file was named with a postfix “.eml”, which stands for “Email message”, like 79edddc6-ce98-4eff-b8ea-414e392bce1f.eml. - The files have similar content like this: ```auto X-Sender: "Do Not Reply" donotreply@anywhere.com X-Receiver: xyz.com MIME-Version: 1.0 From: "Do Not Reply" donotreply@anywhere.com To: xyz.com Date: 26 Oct 2022 14:43:15 -0700 Subject: Hello world, what is my URL? Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbQ== ``` - He wants to get a list of file names, which are **sorted by descending order of the “Date” header value in the file content, for example: `Date: 26 Oct 2022 14:43:15 -0700`**. ## How to try the solution in Katalon Studio You can try the solution in your local Katalon Studio. I assume you have a Katalon project created already. The project should have [some `.eml` files](https://github.com/kazurayam/Dave_Evers_wants_to_sort_files_by_content/tree/master/Include/data) in the following folder: - `/Include/data` Plus, You need to download an external jar that I made from - [Release first release · kazurayam/SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent · GitHub](https://github.com/kazurayam/SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent/releases/tag/0.1.0) Download “SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent-0.1.0.jar” file, store it into the `Drivers` folder of your local Katalon project. You want to make a test case code, like [this](https://github.com/kazurayam/Dave_Evers_wants_to_sort_files_by_content/blob/master/Scripts/TC/Script1667133570111.groovy): ```auto import java.nio.file.Files import java.nio.file.Path import java.nio.file.Paths import java.util.stream.Collectors import com.kms.katalon.core.configuration.RunConfiguration import com.kazurayam.study20221030.PathComparableByDateTime import com.kazurayam.study20221030.PathComparableByContentEmailHeaderValue Path dataDir = Paths.get(RunConfiguration.getProjectDir()).resolve("Include/data") List emlFiles = Files.list(dataDir) .filter({ p -> p.toString().endsWith(".eml") }) // wrap the Path object by a adapter class // to sort the Path objects by the Email Date in the file content .map({ p -> new PathComparableByContentEmailHeaderValue(p, "Date") }) // in the descending order of the Date value .sorted(Comparator.reverseOrder()) .collect(Collectors.toList()) // print path of all eml files emlFiles.eachWithIndex { p, index -> println((index + 1) + "\t" + p.getValue() + "\t" + dataDir.relativize(p.get())) } ``` This Test Case will emit messages in console, for example as this: ```auto 2022-10-31 07:42:18.223 DEBUG testcase.TC - 1: dataDir = get(getProjectDir()).resolve("Include/data") 2022-10-31 07:42:18.249 DEBUG testcase.TC - 2: emlFiles = reverseOrder()).collect(Collectors.toList()) 2022-10-31 07:42:18.451 DEBUG testcase.TC - 3: emlFiles.eachWithIndex({ java.lang.Object p, java.lang.Object index -> ... }) 1 20221026_144315 79edddc6-ce98-4eff-b8ea-414e392bce1f.eml 2 20221026_120000 f503182a-d0ef-444d-a52b-658b5d10de81.eml 3 20221026_110000 test.eml 4 20221026_110000 ccc.eml 5 20221026_110000 bb.eml 6 20221026_110000 a.eml 2022-10-31 07:42:18.484 INFO c.k.katalon.core.main.TestCaseExecutor - END Test Cases/TC ``` Please note that the timestamp values are picked out of the file content. The `com.kazurayam.study20221030.PathComparableByContentEmailDate` class implements everything needed to solve the Dave’s problem. If you want to study more, please visit the following GitHub project and read the source. > **[GitHub - kazurayam/SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent: A short exercise of Java programming. I wanted to...](https://github.com/kazurayam/SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent)** > > A short exercise of Java programming. I wanted to sort text files under a directory by their content (Date header of Email message). Dave’s problem is a pure Java/Groovy programming problem. It has nothing specific to Katalon Studio. So the SortingFilesByDateTimeContent project is not a Katalon project. It is a plain Java8 + Gradle + JUnit5 project. I used my favorite IDE (IntelliJ IDEA) to develop this project. ---
**Author:** ![kazurayam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/katalon/user_avatar/forum.katalon.com/kazurayam/32/333_2.png) [@kazurayam](https://forum.katalon.com/u/kazurayam)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://forum.katalon.com/t/sorting-text-files-by-datetime-in-content/80102/4 "2022-11-01T22:48:12Z")
released [0.3.2](https://github.com/kazurayam/SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent/releases). It supports filtering text files by the vaue of Email header value (such as “To: [xyz.com](http://xyz.com)”) AND sorting the files by the lastModifiled property of java.io.File. You can perform it like this: ```auto ... List files = Files.list(this.dir) filter(p -> p.getFileName().toString().endsWith(".eml")) // filter files with "To: xyz.com" header .map(p -> new PathComparableByContentEmailHeaderValue(p, "To")) .filter(p -> p.getValue().matches("xyz.com")) // to sort by the lastModified timestamp .map(p -> new PathComparableByFileLastModified(p.get())) .sorted(reverseOrder()) .collect(Collectors.toList()); ... ``` The javadoc is [here](https://kazurayam.github.io/SortingFilesByDateTimeInContent/api/) * * * ---
**Author:** ![kazurayam](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/katalon/user_avatar/forum.katalon.com/kazurayam/32/333_2.png) [@kazurayam](https://forum.katalon.com/u/kazurayam)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2022, 5:25am UTC](https://forum.katalon.com/t/sorting-text-files-by-datetime-in-content/80102/5 "2022-11-02T05:25:28Z")
Please note that I wrote my sample code in Java using Lambda expression like ```auto filter(p -> p.getFileName().toString().endsWith(".eml")) ``` If you copy&paste the above code into Test Case in Katalon Studio, you will have compilation error. You need to rewrite this to Closure syntax in Groovy, like ```auto filter({p -> p.getFileName().toString().endsWith(".eml")}) ```