Really? On FreeBSD 6.3, Perl v5.8.8:
$ ln -s i_scratch_your_back you_scratch_my_back
$ ln -s you_scratch_my_back i_scratch_your_back

$ cd you_scratch_my_back 
cd: too many levels of symbolic links: you_scratch_my_back

$ perl -MData::Dumper -e '@s = stat("i_scratch_your_back"); print Dump
+er(@s)'; date
Tue Feb  3 07:31:40 PST 2009
$

[download]

Despite this pathological case, stat does not defeat the purpose of the OP which was to find out if two paths pointed to the same (non-symlink) file. lstat on the other hand would fail is_same if tested with a plain file and its corresponding symlink.

In reply to Re^3: Testing if two paths point to the same file. by repellent
in thread Testing if two paths point to the same file. by JavaFan

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.