$ perl -le 'opendir my $fd, "."; my @files = readdir $fd; closedir $fd; print scalar @files' 48 $ perl -le 'my @files = <*>; print scalar @files' 7 $ _ #### $ perl -le 'my @files = (<*>,<.*>); print scalar @files' 48 $ _ #### use Benchmark qw(:all) ; cmpthese(20000, { readdir => sub { opendir my $fd, "."; my @files = readdir $fd; closedir $fd; }, glob => sub { my @files = (<*>,<.*>); } }); __END__ Rate glob readdir glob 3170/s -- -75% readdir 12739/s 302% --