Utilising calendar class

Question

Hi all,
I am trying to retrieve a file with lowest timestamp from a set of files. The timestamp is contained in the filename.The following code gives the method Im using:
public String sortFilesByTimeStamp(Vector vec)
        String currFileName, selectedFile=null;
        int year,month,date,hours,mins;
        Calendar givendate=Calendar.getInstance();
        Calendar currdate=Calendar.getInstance();
        System.out.println("Currdate:"+ currdate.getTime().toString());
        if(vec==null)
            return selectedFile;
        for(int i=0;i<vec.size();i++)
           currFileName=(String)vec.get(i);
           if(currFileName!=null)
           year= Integer.parseInt(currFileName.substring(4,6));
           month=Integer.parseInt(currFileName.substring(6,8))-1;
           date=Integer.parseInt(currFileName.substring(8,10));
           hours=Integer.parseInt(currFileName.substring(10,12));
           mins=Integer.parseInt(currFileName.substring(12,14));
           givendate.set(year,month,date,hours,mins);
           System.out.println("GivenDate:"+givendate.getTime().toString());
           if((givendate).before(currdate))
               currdate=givendate;
               selectedFile=currFileName;
        return selectedFile;
    }  The vector passed to the method contains an array of strings.
However, when I run this, with the following values:
ABCD0709100600
ABCD0709100800
ABCD0709090700
the file returned is ABCD0709100600 when it has to be ABCD0709090700
am I doing something wrong here?
or is there any better approach to do this?
thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Aren't the strings already sorted in the correct order? Then why bother converting them to Calendar objects to do the conversion? And also, why write your own code to find the first? I would do this:Collections.sort(vec);
return (String) vec.get(0);