#this decode utf8 routine is used so filenames with extended
   # ascii characters (unicode) in filenames, will work properly
   use Encode;
   opendir my $dh, $path or warn "Error: $!";
   my @files = grep !/^\.\.?$/, readdir $dh;
   closedir $dh;
   @files = map { decode( 'utf8', "$path/".$_  ) } sort @files;