# returns the $limit largest files from the flist file, 
# full path to file in $name
sub process_flist {
  my ($name, $limit) = @_;
  my ($nlines, $total, @lines, @size);

  open(my $fh, '<', $name) or die("Error opening file `$name': $!\n");

  while (<$fh>) {
    my @f = split / /;
	
	# skip files that have a space or other whitespace
	# characters in their name
    next if @f > 10;	

	# store file size in bytes and the full path to the file
    push @lines, $f[4] . '/' . $f[1];
  }

  $nlines = scalar @lines;
  {
	# disable warnings because the array to be sorted has 
	# the following format "12345/path/to/file"
	# Perl would complain this is not a number
	# but the <=> comparison operator will handle such 
	# input properly 
	# this is needed so the files can be sorted 
	# with a single pass through
	# the flist file
    no warnings 'numeric';

    $total = sum(@lines);
	$limit = min($limit, $nlines);
    @lines = (sort {$b <=> $a} @lines)[0 .. ($limit - 1)];
  }

  # returns the number of files, their cumulative size,
  # and the $limit largest files
  return ($nlines, $total, @lines);
}