How to read the latest dataset using fread in R?

I am trying to:

• read the latest data from my data folder. I have the same data but at different time stamps.

UPDATED ACCORDING TO THE SUGGESTION IN THE COMMENT

For example:

As you can see my first data was produced on date 20230524 at 10:48

log_metrics202305241048
# A tibble: 10 × 9
   `App name`                  Total number of view…¹ Total number of view…² Total number of view…³
   <chr>                                        <dbl>                  <dbl>                  <dbl>
 1 animals_to_groups                               22                     21                     19
 2 cage_randomiser                                 34                     33                     30
 3 combo_cor                                       19                     18                     18
 4 crispr_screen_viz                               23                     81                     21
 5 dep_map_bem                                      5                     12                      5
 6 dtp_browser_prod                                 7                      6                      7
 7 flat                                            67                     66                     67
 8 growth_rate_explorer                            42                     47                     41
 9 moprospector                                     3                      3                      2
10 translatability_single_gene                     22                     43                     21
# ℹ abbreviated names: ¹​`Total number of views by unique visitors`,
#   ²​`Total number of views by number of logs`,
#   ³​`Total number of views by unique visitor, over 30 seconds`
# ℹ 5 more variables: `Total number of views by logs, over 30 seconds` <dbl>,
#   `Average time spent per app (minutes) by logs` <dbl>, `Maxium duration (in minutes)` <time>,
#   `Minimum duration (in minutes` <time>, `Total number of views over an hour` <dbl>
> 

This is my second dataset which clearly was produced on 2023 05 204 at 10:51

   log_metrics202305241051
# A tibble: 10 × 9
   `App name`                  Total number of view…¹ Total number of view…² Total number of view…³
   <chr>                                        <dbl>                  <dbl>                  <dbl>
 1 animals_to_groups                               22                     21                     19
 2 cage_randomiser                                 34                     33                     30
 3 combo_cor                                       19                     18                     18
 4 crispr_screen_viz                               23                     81                     21
 5 dep_map_bem                                      5                     12                      5
 6 dtp_browser_prod                                 7                      6                      7
 7 flat                                            67                     66                     67
 8 growth_rate_explorer                            42                     47                     41
 9 moprospector                                     3                      3                      2
10 translatability_single_gene                     22                     43                     21
# ℹ abbreviated names: ¹​`Total number of views by unique visitors`,
#   ²​`Total number of views by number of logs`,
#   ³​`Total number of views by unique visitor, over 30 seconds`
# ℹ 5 more variables: `Total number of views by logs, over 30 seconds` <dbl>,
#   `Average time spent per app (minutes) by logs` <dbl>, `Maxium duration (in minutes)` <time>,
#   `Minimum duration (in minutes` <time>, `Total number of views over an hour` <dbl>

Now, I want to read the latest dataset, which is the first one, produced on 10:08. However, as a background, I want to produce monthly datasets, but because I am trying to do this in the future, I will now use the datetime stamps. Thus, I believe it is better to use both, date and time, to be be recognised and picked.

I am using the data.table::fread to read the data because this it reads it very quick.

Now I want to program this code data.table::fread('data/generated_metrics/log_visits_ with the latest date.csv') to read the latest dataset found in data/generated_metrics/ folder where all these log_visists data stamped are sitting.

Is there a way to programmatically do this using fread function to read the latest data set? I am also open for alternative functions for reading my latest data.

You can use as.POSIXct to parse the filenames. Edit: since you added the use of a subdir, we need to expand list.files a little, and then use basename to work on just the filenames ...

files <- list.files(path = "my/data/directory", pattern  ="log_metrics.*",
                    full.names = TRUE)
# files <- c("my/data/directory/log_metrics24_May_2023_10_03", "my/data/directory/log_metrics24_May_2023_10_08")
basename(files)
# [1] "log_metrics24_May_2023_10_03" "log_metrics24_May_2023_10_08"
as.POSIXct(basename(files), format = "log_metrics%d_%b_%Y_%H_%M")
# [1] "2023-05-24 10:03:00 EDT" "2023-05-24 10:08:00 EDT"
files[which.max(as.POSIXct(basename(files), format = "log_metrics%d_%b_%Y_%H_%M"))]
# [1] "my/data/directory/log_metrics24_May_2023_10_08"
fread(files[which.max(as.POSIXct(basename(files), format = "log_metrics%d_%b_%Y_%H_%M"))])

If your filename prefix varies, one hack (that may or may not work) is to strip everything leading up to the first number (note no more use of basename).

sub("^[^0-9]*", "", files)
# [1] "24_May_2023_10_03" "24_May_2023_10_08"
as.POSIXct(sub("^[^0-9]*", "", files), format = "%d_%b_%Y_%H_%M")
# [1] "2023-05-24 10:03:00 EDT" "2023-05-24 10:08:00 EDT"
files[which.max(as.POSIXct(sub("^[^0-9]*", "", files), format = "%d_%b_%Y_%H_%M"))]
# [1] "my/data/directory/log_metrics24_May_2023_10_08"

If you aren't familiar with as.POSIXct's use of %-codes, see ?strptime.