Take a look at File::Flat, File::List and File::Spec. These provide friendly ways to manipulate directories and files.

This example clones a directory tree:

use File::Flat;
use File::List;

my $search = new File::List("/usr/local/man");
$search->show_only_dirs();
my @dirs  = @{ $search->find(".*") };
foreach my $dirname (@dirs){
  File::Flat->makeDirectory("/copy".$dirname);
}
[download]

Of course, this code could be tightened up quite a bit.

It should work perfectly the first time! - toma