AY YI YI!!!! I wrote that very line and I just had the closing parenthesis in the wrong spot, but now that I look at it it's a total forehead slapper. Thanks for the clarification!
I do just want to print to the file, not STDOUT...sorry about not being clearer in the OP. I'll hang onto that other code snippet though because I know that will come up sometime.
On the command line solution idea - that's *exactly* what I would have done in the real world, but this being homework I knew all my functionality had to be in the script.
On the perldoc thing, that's the sense I got, but I guess I was reading more into it than I should have. I was up well past my expiry date while working on it the last 2 nights...Ah well......
Comment on Re: Re: reading files and directories, part two
Btw, you don't need these parentheses there,
print OUTFILE "<B>$file</B><BR>\n" if -d "$dir/$file"; works just fine.
I was just sticking to your 'original' style in my answer, though for me the 2nd way reads better. But consistency is more important, so either change every usage of print or leave it as it is.