Regrettably no. You do have to do that directory call first. This is a race condition that is common on multiuser systems.

The best you can do is either change the kernel to accomodate your desires (you could probably write a module) or you could implement that bit of code in C to reduce the amount of time you linger.

In perl, I would rewrite your code so that you open all the files first, then read from them one by one. In most unices, a file won't 'disappear' until the last file handle is closed.

foreach my $d(readdir(PROC)){
        next if $d !~ /^[0-9]+$/;

        my $procdir = "/proc/$d";
        open($filehandles{$procdir}, "<", $procdir/status") || warn "c
+an't open status with$procdir";
}
foreach my $fh ( keys %filehandles ) {
        while(<$fh>){
            @a = split(/\s+/, $_) if /Uid/;
            $temp[0] = $a[1];
            @b = split(/\s+/, $_) if /VmSize/;
            $temp[1] = $b[1];
        }
close $fh;
}
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____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.