But then you seem to want to do this in perl. Simply put a check into your loop:

foreach $file (<*.zip>) {
  next if $file =~ /blahblah/;
  # continue with filetype- and time-checking and 
  # deletion...
  unless (-d $file) { # no dirs
    # use stat($file)[9] which is mtime in seconds, I 
    # think, or use the -M filetest which gives days
    # to find out whether to delete or not...
  }
}
[download]

Maybe you should consider using File::Find for this...

Regards...	Stefan
you begin bashing the string with a +42 regexp of confusion

Don't use this verbatum, but it should give you an idea of how to do what you're looking for. You're going to want to read up on File::Find and the _X file test operators to see what exactly I'm doing.

There's also some ugliness with the log file name so ignore that. It's something that I need to fix but it hasn't been important enough to worry about.

###################################################################
# purge_bp.pl
# Purges files older than 14 days
# Created by Rich Chiavaroli
# Last modified on 2/14/01
# Change Log:
# 2/5/01 - 2/7/01    Inital Creation
#
# 2/14/01         Fixed directory removal. All empty directories
#            will now be removed
###################################################################

use strict;
use File::Find;
my ($logfile, $path,@dirlist, $i, $entry, 
    @ignore_list, $ignore_file, @contents);


# uncomment this line and set it to the drive the bypass is mapped to.
#$path = "h:/*";
$logfile = "bypass.log";

# ignore.txt should have root directory names on seperate lines.
$ignore_file = "c:/temp/ignore.txt";

open(IGNORE_FILE, $ignore_file) ||die "Can't open ignore file: $!\n";
@ignore_list = <IGNORE_FILE>;
close IGNORE_FILE;
chomp(@ignore_list);

open( LOGFILE, ">>c:/temp/$logfile");
printf LOGFILE ("%d/%d/%d - Log of Purged documents for %s\n\n", (loca
+ltime)[3,4], (localtime)[5] - 100, $path);

while (<${path}> ) {
    if ( -d ) {
        push(@dirlist, $_ . "/") if ok_to_purge($_, @ignore_list);
    }
}
print LOGFILE "\n================================\n\n";
find ({wanted => \&process_file, no_chdir => 1, bydepth => 1 } , @dirl
+ist);

foreach $i (@dirlist) {
    unless (@contents = <$i/*>) {
        print LOGFILE "Directory $i empty - deleted.\n";
        rmdir ($i);
    }
}

close LOGFILE;

# Begin functions
#################################################


#################################################
# This sub is passed each file to be processes.
# Deletes all files older than 14 days along with empty
# directories.
#################################################
sub process_file {

    my($name, @contents);
    $name = $File::Find::name;
    #change /'s to \'s for the attrib command on windows platforms
    $name =~ s#/#\\#g;
    print "$name\n";
    if (!-l && -d _) {
        unless (@contents = <$File::Find::name/*>) {
            if (rmdir($File::Find::name)) {
                    print LOGFILE "Directory $name empty - deleted.\n"
+;
            }
            elsif ((!`attrib -R $name`) && (rmdir($File::Find::name)))
+ {
                print LOGFILE "Directory $name empty - deleted(Read On
+ly).\n";
            }
            else {
                print LOGFILE "ERR: Can't delete $name - $!\n";
            }
        }
    }
    else {
        my ($mdate, $cdate, $logfile, $age, $size,
        $max_age);

        $max_age = 14;
        $age = int(-M) < int(-C) ? int(-M) : int(-C);
        if ($age > $max_age)  {
            $size = (-s);
            if (unlink($File::Find::name) ) {
                print "$File::Find::name, - $age days, $size \n";
                print LOGFILE "$File::Find::name, - $age days, $size \
+n";
            }
            elsif ((!`attrib -R $name`) && (unlink($File::Find::name))
+) {
                print LOGFILE "$File::Find::name, - $age days, $size (
+Read Only)\n\n";
            }
            else {
                print LOGFILE "ERR: Couldn't delete $File::Find::name 
+- $!\n";
            }
        }
    }
}
###################################################
# Checks the directory to see if it's in the ignore file.
###################################################
sub ok_to_purge {

    my ($purge, $i, $dir, @list);
    $purge = 1;
    ($dir, @list) = @_;

    foreach $i (@list) {
        if ($dir =~ /^$path\/$i/i) {
            print LOGFILE "Ignoring directory: $dir\n";
            $purge = 0;
            last
        }
    }
    return $purge;
}
[download]

use strict;

my $dir = "/home/sscripts/public_html/kage/";
my %ignore = ( 'blahblah.zip' => 1 );
my $seconds = 60 * 60 * 48;
my $now = time();

print ("Content-type: text/html\n\n");

opendir ITEMS, $dir;
my @files = grep !/^\./, readdir ITEMS;
closedir ITEMS;
chomp @files;

chdir $dir;

foreach my $file ( @files ) {
    if ( -d $file || defined $ignore{$file} ) { next }
    my $mod_time = ( stat($file) )[9];
    my $when = localtime( $mod_time );
    print ("$file $when<br>\n");
    if ( $now - $seconds > $mod_time ) {
        unlink $file;
    }
}
[download]

my $days = 2;
my $keep_as_of = time - ( $days * 84600 );

my @old_files = (
    grep{ !-d
          && ! /\.zip$/i
          && ( stat( $_ ) )[9] < $keep_as_of
    }
    glob( "/path/to/directory/*" )
);

unlink @old_files;

print "The following files have been removed\n\n", join "\n", @old_fil
+es;
[download]

find . -type f -a -mtime +2 to find the files. grep -v "blahblah" to strip out the ones you want to ignore, and xargs rm to do the final nuking. All in one line now...

find . -type f -a -mtime +2 | grep -v "blahblah" | xargs rm

--
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";