my ($cretime) = eval { stat("$SPOOL/$file")->ctime }
   or next;

push @files, [ $cretime, $file ];

##</code><code>##

my $stat = stat("$SPOOL/$file")
   or next;

push @files, [ $stat->ctime, $file ];

##</code><code>##

$ perl -MFile::stat -le'print "".localtime( stat("a")->ctime )'
Wed Jul 29 12:13:21 2009

$ chmod u+r a

$ perl -MFile::stat -le'print "".localtime( stat("a")->ctime )'
Wed Jul 29 12:13:46 2009