If you know that your number will be in position 0 or position 1, and that is all you care about, use the '^' to determine if the
first character is a number or not. If it is, you will get a match, if it is not, then you know the first character is an non-number...
if ($filename =~ /^[0-9]/) { .... } (untested)
Hope that is helpful....
...the majority is always wrong, and always the last to know about it... Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...