foreach $name (@name) { last if ($name =~ $filename); unlink($files . "\\" . $filename) or warn qq{cannot delete $filename: $!+}; last; } #### if ($name[0] !~ $filename) { unlink($files . "\\" . $filename) or warn qq{cannot delete $filename: $!+}; } #### #!\perl\bin\perl use strict; use warnings; my $files = "C:\\Directory"; my $list = "C:\\Test.sdf"; my %keepList; open my $namesIn, '<', $list or die "Failed to open file: $!\n"; while (<$namesIn>) { chomp; $keepList{$_} = 1; } close $namesIn; opendir my ($filesScan), $files; while (my $filename = readdir $filesScan) { next if exists $keepList{$filename}; unlink "$files\\$filename" or warn qq{cannot delete $filename: $!+}; } closedir $filesScan;