#!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use File::Spec; my $dirname = "C:\\Users\\Me\\Desktop\\Cluster1"; my @file_to_use_later; ## for use later chdir $dirname; ## add this to OP script opendir DIR, $dirname or die "can't open directory: $!"; my @FILES = readdir(DIR); foreach my $FILE (@FILES) { my $fil_path = File::Spec->rel2abs($FILE); print "File path:", $fil_path, $/; push @file_to_use_later, $fil_path if -f $fil_path; ## check files contents later } closedir DIR or die "can't close directory: $!"; ## test the files stored in the array variable later for my $filename (@file_to_use_later) { print $filename, $/; open my $fh, '<', $filename or die "can't open: $!"; while (<$fh>) { chomp; print $_, $/; } close $fh or die "can't close file:$!"; }