in reply to Wildcards for a wide array of strings?

Hello, zarath and welcome to the monastery and to the wonderful world of Perl,

As (sigh) already said glob can help you if all files are currently on the same level, if not it will be worth to learn File::Find or how to searching a directory tree by hands. Many way are possible, as always in Perl, being my preferred the one shown by tachyon many years ago: Re: Win32 Recursive Directory Listing

L*

There are no rules, there are no thumbs..
Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.