What I'm trying to do isn't particularly logical -- I have a list of files (generated outside the script) that I need to determine if there is a matching folder name under a different directory tree -- if there is then I need to find out if that folder has a pdf in it. If all those things are true then the original file is "eligible" for conversion (to be done later). If not, I want to know what needs to be done for that file to be eligible later (hence the ineligible logging).

Thanks for the help -- I'm too new to perl to know what the right suggestion is so let me experiment with all your suggestions and get back later