Perl has a -e test builtin, no need to use the shell's test function.

But a -r test suggests itself if you need to read the file.

If this is not just a fiddle-with-perl exercise, what you are doing is basically copying a file. You could shortcut all of it to use File::Basename qw(basename); use File::Copy qw(copy); copy $_[0], basename $_[0];

Cheers, Sören