Fix Wordpress XMLRPC Script to include published date

I have a php script that runs everyday creating posts from an XML file into a wordpress site using XMLRPC, I need it amended to do the following: 1) Take the publish date from a node in the XML file 2) When creating the post in wordpress to use the publish date as the posts created/published on date 3) Loop through a folder on the server and create posts from all of the xml files in the folder with a delay between each xml file as each xml file contains around 100 posts. The reason for this is I have data from last year I want to import to the site and it needs to have the published date match the date in the content. If you have any questions let me know, I'll provide the current php script to the freelancer I award the project to.