If so, how often, relative to the times when you do?

While I share your pain (and frequently stumb my toe on this behavior), I think this idiom will help you. Use the chdir() function to get to the desired directory, then read away. That way, your can use the result of readdir directly.

use CWD;
my $org_dir = cwd;

chdir($desired_dir) || die "can't cd: $!";
opendir(DIR, $desired_dir) || die "can't opendir: $!";

while(my $file = readdir DIR){
   next if -d $file;
   # preform operations below on $file 
}
closedir DIR;

chdir($org_dir) || die "can't get back to $org_dir: $!";
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