Thanks zaxo! You beat me to the punch :)

I was confused too why zaxo said it will reduce number of stat calls. I am yet to familiarize myself with ST so i will read up on that before I ask any questions regarding that :)

Seems like the OP wanted the last modified file. So why store all file and then sort instead of a simple max?

Modifying graff's code here

Update : Added logic to update $max. Thanks graff. my oversight. 

my %file_date;
my $max = -99999999; # set it to first file's mtime would be better 
                     # but just for demonstration here
my $mtime;
my $file;
for ( glob '/path/to/*.log' ) {
    $mtime = (stat)[9];
    if ($max <= $mtime) {
       $file =  $_;
       $max = $mtime;
    }
  
print ("file = $file\n");

# my $newest = ( sort { $file_date{$b} <=> $file_date{$a} } keys %file
+_age )[0];

[download]

In reply to Re^3: how to list the files in dir with respect to time by sk
in thread how to list the files in dir with respect to time by swaroop

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.