# skip a file in the loop in this case .gif files
next if $File =~/\.gif$/;

# write to a file (append mode)
my $file = "C:\\temp\\warning.txt";
open OUT, ">>$file" or die "Can't append $file, perl say reason $!\n";
# print to file
print OUT "$File older than 5min found\n";
# warn prints to STDERR ie screen on win32
warn "$File older than 5min found\n";
close OUT;
[download]

Thanks for the reply, tachyon. I tried adding that code, thus:

#!/bin/perl -w
use strict;
my $mytime=(time);
my ($File,$FileStat,$CallOutDir);
chdir 'C:/devl/bin/timedir' or die "Arghh!!! $!";
opendir(ROOT, ".") or die "Arghh!!! $!";
foreach $File (readdir(ROOT)) {
    next if $File=~/^\./;
    next if $File =~/\._Checking_File_Readiness_$/; # This is the *.fi
+letype I want to ignore
    next if $File =~/\_Watched_Folder_Active_$/; # This is the single 
+file I'd also like to ignore
    if ($FileStat = (stat $File)[9]){
        if ($FileStat <= ($mytime - 300)) {
        print "File older than 5min found. The file name is $File";
        #send mail here....
        last;
        }
    }
}
[download]

but now I get a warning based on the "." and "..", which I'd also like to ignore (I thought the first script I posted ignored that. Pardon me if I didn't append your code correctly...I'm obviously quite new to all this. Thanks for any input. Dave

What warnings exactly? It should not give warnings as far as I can see. You need to be specific. There are really easy ways to do this stuff in perl. grep and glob are quite handy tools.....

# in simple pieces
my $five_min = 5 / 60*24;   # 5 minutes as part of day for M time
my $dir = 'C:/devl/bin/timedir';
my @files_dirs = glob("$dir/*");
my @files = grep{ ! -d $_ } @files_dirs;
my @want  = grep{ ! m// and ! m// } @files;
my @old   = grep{ -M $_ > $five_min } @want;
print "$_ is > 5 minutes old\n" for @old;

# in one line:
print "$_ is > 5 minutes old\n" for grep {
    ! -d     and 
    ! m/foo/ and 
    ! m/bar/ and 
    -M > 0.0035
} glob("C:/devl/bin/timedir/*");
[download]

cheers

tachyon