My question is there a simpler way to take the output from the printf statement so that it can be used with the mkdir command? My previous attempts resulted with the return status of 1 being used with the mkdir command. The below code does work. 
sub dirname ()
{
    @date = ();
    @date = localtime();
    $time = localtime();
    unlink<$now>;
    open(NOW, "> $now") or die "LOG->Can't open $now: $!\n";
    NOW->autoflush(1);
    printf NOW ("%02d-%02d-%04d", $date[4]+1, $date[3], $date[5]+1900)
+;
    close(NOW);
    open(TMP, "< $now") or die "LOG->Can't open $now: $!\n";
    while($_ = <TMP>)
    {
        if ($_ =~ s/^(\d{2}-\d{2}-\d{4})$/$1/)
        {
            $dirname = "";
            $dirname = $1;
            if ( -d "$path/$dirname")
            {
            last;
            }
            else
            {
            mkdir("$path/$dirname", 0777) or die "LOG->Error is: $!\n"
+;
            }
        }
        else
        {
            print LOG "$time Program Error 8 - $_\n";
            email();
            exit 1;
        }
    }
    close(TMP);
}

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In reply to mkdir & date command by tc1364

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