$file is a scalar variable, possibly a file path. Why do you assign a list to it?

my $files = ($directory, "\", $file);
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It might be better to concatenate the strings:

my $file_path = $directory . '\\' . $file;
# OR
my $file_path = "$directory\\$file";
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Note that \ is special, to include it literally, you have to backslash it.