This is offtopic for perl, but file redirects work in DOS. Therefore, date /t > outfile.txt would output it to outfile.txt in the same directory. You can give it a path to go where you'd like.
Just another way that you can get the job done...
--jay
Aack! Stuff like this is fraught with peril. Don't do it!
What if the user had a valuable file of the same name in that directory that you just clobbered? What if you don't have permission to write in the directory? What if someone in a different timezone has mounted the drive remotely and runs at the same time as you do? What if any of a number of ugly things happen between the time you write it and the time you read it?
This creates a maintenance headache way out of proportion to the problem you're trying to solve. Polluting a directory to get the date is completely unnecessary, and is an accident just waiting to happen.
You're right of course about redirecting the output. But, sorry to nitpick, this isn't DOS exactly - it's the WinNT shell. DOS, as seen on Windows9x/3x/MS-DOS won't take the switch /t after the date command.