use strict; use warnings; use File::Find; my @files; my @dirs = qw(/some /list /of /dirs); sub findstuff { my $file = $File::Find::name; return unless -f "$file"; if (grep { /regex/ } "$file") { print "Found regex in $file\n"; push @files, $file; } } find(\&findstuff, @dirs); print "Results:\n@files\n";