As mentioned in the other comment(s), perhaps @files is too large ? You don't mention what actually happens.

Try this instead: 

path = "/var/tmp/decode1";
opendir(DIR, $path);
while (defined($file=readdir(DIR))) {
  next unless ($file =~ /\.dat$/);
  open(INPUT, "$path/$file") or die "can't open file $file: $!";

  # do some stuff

  close INPUT;
}
closedir(DIR);

[download]
This should help, since readdir() in a scalar context returns just the next entry. If this doesn't help, supplying any error message you are running into would help us to give you a better answer.

In reply to Re: Question on fork and close. by kschwab
in thread Question on fork and close. by sbank

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