Could the problem be due to use of auto mount of a NFS directory (given auto mount is actually being used)? For whatever reason, perhaps use of ls is more forceful than size or emptiness test. Then again both -- ls & -X -- get the information via stat call, no? Seems like something might have changed in perl + Suse combination.

Does calling stat() explicitly on file path (and not running system ls) before -[sz] make a difference?

In reply to Re: -s test option returns differently in some cases by parv
in thread -s test option returns differently in some cases by frogsausage

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