Forsooth, dws, you've given this poor petitioner exactly the wrong advice!

Don't tell acolytes that opendir X,$x or die is dangerous because opendir lacks parens. To the contrary, the entire point of the "and", "or", "xor", and "not" keywords is that they have such low precedence that they are safe to use in just that fashion.

Remember, being too cautious is just as likely to lead you into a mistake as not being cautious enough.

    -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos