From which I gather the filetests don't take a default "$_".

Well if you read "perldoc -f -X" you'll see it says: 

    -X FILEHANDLE
    -X EXPR
    -X DIRHANDLE
    -X      A file test, where X is one of the letters listed below.  This unary
            operator takes one argument, either a filename, a filehandle, or a
            dirhandle, and tests the associated file to see if something is true
            about it.  If the argument is omitted, tests $_, except for "-t", which
            tests STDIN.  Unless otherwise documented, it returns 1 for true
            and '' for false, or the undefined value if the file doesn't exist.  Despite
            the funny names, precedence is the same as any other named unary operator.

In reply to Re^2: Deleting old files from directory by jwkrahn
in thread Deleting old files from directory by Anonymous Monk

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.