Something worth considering:

Tie         GBARR     Tie-Dir-1.02.tar.gz               2k  26 Apr 1996

from CPAN would save you some steps. But I haven't actually used the module myself. Here's the internal docs:

This module provides a method of reading directories using a hash.

The keys of the hash are the directory entries and the values are a
reference to an array which holds the result of C<stat> being called
on the entry.

The access and modification times of an entry can be changed by assign
+ing
to an element of the hash. If a single number is assigned then the acc
+ess
and modification times will both be set to the same value, alternative
+ly
the access and modification times may be set separetly by passing a
reference to an array with 2 entries, the first being the access time
and the second being the modification time.

. . . . 

SYNOPSIS

        tie %hash, Tie::Dir, ".";

        new Tie::Dir \%hash, ".";

        $hash = new Tie::Dir ".";

        # itterate through the directory
        foreach $file ( keys %hash ) {
                ...
        }

        # Set the access and modification times (touch :-)
        $hash{SomeFile} = time;

        # Obtain stat information of a file
        @stat = @{$hash{SomeFile}};

        # Check if entry exists
        if(exists $hash{SomeFile}) {
                ...
        }

        # Delete an entry
        delete $hash{SomeFile};
[download]

I would be cautious when testing it out since it appears you could modify times/dates or even delete files with it.

Good luck.

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