In bash i do:
export ril=~/.mozilla/firefox/profiledirectory/Read-It-Later\ Offline/
+f
echo $ril
/home/usrname/.mozilla/firefox/profiledirectory/Read-It-Later Offline/

I call the script like this:
myscript.pl "$ril"

this is the script:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

$dir = shift or die("Use directory as argument.\n");
print $dir,"\n";
opendir DIR,$dir or die "Can't open directory.\n";
@dir = readdir DIR;
closedir DIR;

foreach(@dir) {
    if (-d$_) {print $_," is a directory.\n";}
    elsif (-f$_) {print $_," is a file.\n";}
    else {print $_," is not a file or a directory!\n";}
    
}

this is the out put of the script:
/home/usrname/.mozilla/firefox/profiledirectory/Read-It-Later Offline/
. is a directory.
.. is a directory.
RIL 533_files is not a file or a directory!
list_of_reports.html is a file.
RIL 533.html is not a file or a directory!
RIL 1178.html is not a file or a directory!
RIL 1178_files is not a file or a directory!
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