Both variants are rather unreadable. Why not like so? 
my $epoch = stat($self->{ABS_FILENAME})->mtime;
$self->{CONFIG_EPOCH} = $epoch if $epoch;

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Repetitive, but it can't really be helped in this case.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re: my $variable with &&do{} doesn't compile by Aristotle
in thread my $variable with &&do{} doesn't compile by Biker

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