An approach might include MIME::Types + File::Basename. That said, you need to remember the extensions do not guarantee content/type-

What the heck is this adult content doing in my spreadsheet!?!  ;-)

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s''(q.S:$/9=(T1';s;(..)(..);$..=substr+crypt($1,$2),2,3;eg;print$..$/

If you just want to get the extension of filename, then use File::Basename

eg:

    use File::Basename;

    ($name,$path,$suffix) = fileparse($fullname,@suffixlist);
    $name = fileparse($fullname,@suffixlist);
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The second argument of fileparse is either a literal list of acceptable extensions, or a regular expression, that will match acceptable extensions, so for normal DOS style extensions, you would write:

$name,$path,$suffix) = fileparse($fullname,qr/\..*/);
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If you wan't to find out what type a file is, and you can't use, or don't trust the filename, then something like the unix file utility may be helpful. It reads the file contents, and attempts to guess the file type from what it finds. In my experience it is usually correct.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
my $filename = "this.is.my.filename.txt";
my @bits = split /\./, $filename;
print pop @bits;
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Saving the whole array and then popping off the last element uses up lines and adds variables. I'd rather wrap the split in parentheses and reference the last element.

my $suffix = ( split /\./, $filename )[-1];
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The only danger is that if the only reason you're getting the suffix is to print it, you need more parentheses to prevent print from thinking a subset of the expression is its argument list:

print ( split /\./, $filename )[-1];   # wrong
print (( split /\./, $filename )[-1]); # unpleasant
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As Occam said: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

Thanks, that was basically (however inelegantly) what I was trying to accomplish. Printing was just for demonstration purposes.

Most people just look at the letters following the last '.' and call it a day.

You want to look for (ie: regex) a literal '.' (use a backslash), plus up to three characters that are not dots, then the end of string. And capture those characters.