I see your point - and I concur that using a database was the better choice in this case (locate operates much in the same way, f.ex). Though I'd still use File::Find or at least find instead to scan the filesystem - the pertinent file information can more robustly be retrieved by (lstat|stat)ing the files yourself rather than parsing ls' output. In general, the less parsing you do, the better.

Makeshifts last the longest.