next if $file =~ /^\.\.?$/;

When dealing with readdir, a better habit to get into for dealing with the . (current) and .. (parent) entries is to name them explicitly:

    next if $file eq '.' or $file eq '..';

[download]

There's only two of them, no need to haul in regexp machinery just for that. If you want to be really platform agnostic, you could use File::Spec and 

    use File::Spec qw/curdir updir/;
    next if $file eq curdir() or $file eq updir();

[download]

Addendum: see this note which summarises the issue.

In reply to Re: reading files and directories by grinder
in thread reading files and directories by ctp

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