I am looking for a more efficient means of getting data from a directory of tab separated files into hash. The directory is full of files in the format: key\tvalue0\tvalue1\tvalue2\nkey\tvalue0\tvalue1\n ... the individual files are small (~10 lines) but the directory can be fairly large (10,000 files). I am sure there is a better way to do it than the way i have been, so i come to the monks to find the best way. Here is what i have been doing. 
my $dir = "/Path/to/a/data/directory";
my %hash;
my @ls = `ls $dir`;
foreach (@ls){
   chomp;
   next if /\~$/ || !$_;
   my $file = $_;
   my $info = `cat $dir/$_`;
   my (@lines) = split(/\n/,$info);
   for (@lines){
       s/^\s+//; next if /^\#/ || !$_;
       my ($key, @values) = split(/\t/);
       $hash{$file}{$key} = [@values];
   }
}

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if there is a better way, glob or readdir, please give an example of how i should adapt my code?

In reply to greater efficiency required (ls, glob, or readdir?) by jperlq

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