There's a curdir() which will do what you want.

My test code:

use File::Spec;

my $f = 'File::Spec';

print $f->curdir, "\n";
print $f->updir, "\n";
[download]

My output:

$ perl ./test_file_spec
.
..
$
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There's also some notes on this in the perlport manpage ("Files and Filesystems" section).

PN5