Finding the oldest/most recent/minimum/maximum of a list does not require sorting. For a 10-file directory, it's not a big deal, but the right tool for the job is a simple max-finder: 
my $oldest;
my $oldtime = 0;
for (glob "$dir/*.pl") {
  my $thistime = -C;
  if ($thistime > $oldtime) {
    ($oldest, $oldtime) = ($_, $thistime);
  } 
}

[download]
You could do this at kind of the same programming level as you're trying to by using List::Util 'reduce': 
use List::Util 'reduce';
my $file = (reduce {$a->[0] < $b->[0] ? $a : $b}
                   map {[(stat)[10],$_]}
                   glob '*.pl'
           )->[1];

[download]
That makes for somewhat complicated reading, though, and might be better broken into more steps.

Update: for posterity: the map above is only useful for reducing the number of times stat is called, from 2*N to N. The overhead of map and storing the values and dereferencing is probably not worth it. It's certainly simpler to say 

my $file = reduce {(stat $a)[10] < (stat $b)[10] ? $a : $b}
                  glob '*.pl';

[download]
Caution: Contents may have been coded under pressure.

In reply to Re: Finding oldest file in directory by Roy Johnson
in thread Finding oldest file in directory by Nitrox

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.