One very effective way to get Perl to talk directly with the underlying OS is using glue code written in C, which is very good at dealing with the OS. Extending Perl with C code is typically done through XSUBs (eXternal SUBroutines).

Some useful resources:

• perldoc perlxs
• perldoc perlxstut
• Chapter 21 of the Camel Book
• searching xs here

-- TMTOWTDI