Well, it tuns out that the culprits are -T and -B I was also checking to see if the file was a text file or a binary file. 
#!perl
my $file=shift;

if(!-e $file){die "no file";}

if(-d $file){print "directory\n";}
if(-T $file){print "text file\n";}
if(-B $file){print "binary file\n";}
my @stats = stat($file);
print "Accessed=$stats[8]\n";

[download]
So, my question (revised) is "Is there a way to determine file type without changing the access date?" Thanks so much.

In reply to Re^2: Getting the Access Date of a file without changing it by slloyd
in thread Getting the Access Date of a file without changing it by slloyd

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.