Show us, with code and output, why the results to stat are "odd" (e.g. "ls -l /server/file", and the mtime and atime results from stat for the same file).

FWIW, 'stat' is pretty basic stuff. If on the slim chance that stat is actually broken in your copy of perl, then you might as well not use perl until you get an unbroken version (i.e. don't try using other solutions -- figure out why stat is "odd" first).

bluto