i would like to know the best method for handling end of the month conditions

I would look at Date::Calc on CPAN for dealing with date math. (there is probably something in DateTime as well, but as of yet i am not familiar with those modules). Here is some code to work off of:

use strict;
use warnings;
use Date::Calc qw/Add_Delta_Days/;

my ($mday,$mon,$year) = (localtime)[3..5];
my ($new_year,$new_month,$new_day) = Add_Delta_Days($year + 1900,$mon+
+1,$mday,-1);

my $file_name = sprintf("%04d%02d%02d.dat", $new_year,$new_month,$new_
+day);
print "Getting $file_name\n";
[download]

Anyhow take a look at the Date::Calc documentation.

-enlil