Thanks Choroba for your reply, I agree it should have worked, which is strange. However, I found a way to get it work, here is solution below. I think the problem was the subroutine call from the previous code, which I removed and modified the foreach loop in complete code as seen below.

#removed from current code
copySelected(\@branchesSelected);
[download]

#complete solution below

#!/web/soft/iw-home/TeamSite/iw-perl/bin/iwperl

use strict; # require variables to be declared
use diagnostics; # expand warnings (-w) expanation

use File::Find;

my @branchesSelected = qw(test_branch);

my %options = (preprocess =>\&new_dir, wanted=>\&wanted);
        
find ( \%options, @root);

######################################################################
+###
# process files per directory
######################################################################
+###
sub new_dir
{   
    my @files = @_;  # the readdir() output 
                    # contains both (files and directories)
                    
    # find html files under pages directory                
    if ($File::Find::dir =~ m|pages|) {
        
        # sort files 
        @files = sort(@files);
                        
        # process files and directories
        foreach my $name (@files) {
             next if ($name !~ m|workshop|);
            # scan files
            if (-e $name) {
                
                # skipped if not html file
                next if ($name !~ m|\.html$|);
                push (@copyFiles, "$File::Find::dir/$name");    

            }
            elsif (-d $name){
                mi0::LogManager::info("Directory found $name, cannot c
+opy folders");
            }
            else{
                mi0::LogManager::info("No Files found");
            }
            copySelected(\@copyFiles);
            mi0::LogManager::info("");
        }     
    }
    return @files;   #return the list to continue processing
    
} # End of sub new_dir {

######################################################################
+###
# needed for syntax, extra's for getting size etc. if needed
######################################################################
+###
sub wanted
{
    # not used here, but dummy sub is needed for syntax
    # this routine is called for each file/directory
    # if we wanted to do something special for each one
    # maybe get a size or whatever...

    # the full path name of this file would be in $File::Find::name 
    
} # End of sub wanted {

sub copySelected ($) {
    my $copy_selected = $_[0];
    my @selectedBranches = qw();
    my @selectedFiles = qw();
    
    foreach my $selected (@$copy_selected) {
        next if $duplicates { $selected }++;
        if ($selected =~ m|\/|g) {
            mi0::LogManager::info("files selected: $selected"); 
            push(@selectedFiles,$selected);
        } else {
            mi0::LogManager::info("branches selected: $selected");
            push(@selectedBranches,$selected);
        }        
    }

    #solution    
    foreach my $branches (@branchesSelected) {
        mi0::LogManager::info("branches selected: $branches") if !$dup
+licates { $branches }++;          
            foreach my $files (@selectedFiles) {
                $files =~ s|$copyFromBranch|$branches|g;
                mi0::LogManager::info("files copied: $files"); 
            }
    }            
}
[download]