#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use Data::Dumper; my $nname = "monk"; my $name = "testuser"; sub rename_account { my ( $name , $nname ) = ( @_ ); my $username = `usermod -l $nname $name`; my $dirusername = `usermod -d /home/$nname -m $nname`; chomp(my @dir = `ls -la /home`); print Dumper \@dir; } # rename_account("monk", "testuser"); rename_account("testuser", "monk"); __END__ $ sudo perl sample.pl $VAR1 = [ 'total 16', 'drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Mar 19 12:57 .', 'drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Mar 7 15:04 ..', 'drwxr-xr-x 2 monk testuser 4096 Mar 19 12:51 monk', ];