Global Variables and Contexts - Getting Started with Talend Open Studio for Data Integration - page 230

We want the job to read a directory of files (with timestamped filenames) and pick
out the oldest file for processing. In your DataIn\Chapter9 directory, set up five
new files, each with the filename of pattern file_yyyymmdd.txt . The files are shown
as follows:

Now follow the given steps:

1. Create a new job and name it GlobalVariablesComponent .

2. From the Palette, drop the following components onto the Job Designer:

tFileList , tIterateToFlow , tSampleRow , tSetGlobalVar , and tFileCopy .

3. Set the tFileList component to read the DataIn\Chapter9 directory

and set the Filemask to "*.txt" .

4. Ensure that the Order by value is set to By file name and the Order
action value is set to ASC . This sorts the file list output data by filename
in ascending order and in our scenario puts the oldest file as the first data
element to be the output.
5. Connect the file list component to the tIterateToFlow component using an
iterate connector. (The tIterateToFlow component transforms an iterated list
into a data flow that can be processed).