Rather than shell out 200*N times where N is the number of operations per file, it is better (and walks around the problem you pose!) to use e.g. IPC::Open3 to maintain a dialogue with a single clearcase session (one process only!. It also means you don;t have to cd 200 times either. e.g.:

Actually I don't need to code this e.g. - it's all been done before in ClearCase::Proc::ClearTool. One of these days I'll have to give up coding and let cpan do it all ;)