but how do I make it so the users can select the directory when the programme is ran?
One way is to pass it in on the command line (see shift): 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $directory = shift;
print "dir=$directory\n";   # just for debug

[download]

Run your program as: 

$ ./838783.pl /foo/bar
dir=/foo/bar

[download]

In reply to Re^2: searching several files for a string at one time by toolic
in thread searching several files for a string at one time by daggy

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