Why not:

unless (unlink $file) {
    print "...";
    push @list, $file;
}
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which at least avoids using a global array in the sub. If you need to do it a lot put the unlink into a sub:

DoDaUnlink ($file, \@list);

sub DoDaUnlink {
    my ($file, $list) = @_;

    return if unlink $file;
    print "...";
    push @$list, $file;
}
[download]