I apologize in advance for being picky...

my $todays_date = strftime '%d.%m.%y', localtime;
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Is there a better (shorter) way?

Maybe not shorter, but certainly better:

my $todays_date = strftime '%d.%m.%Y', localtime;
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The current year is 2005, not 5. See also Markus Kuhn's excellent ISO 8601 page for en even better format.