Current Perl documentation can be found at perldoc.perl.org.

Here is our local, out-dated (pre-5.6) version:

Use the <> (glob()) operator, documented in the perlfunc manpage. This requires that you have a shell installed that groks tildes, meaning csh or tcsh or (some versions of) ksh, and thus may have portability problems. The Glob::KGlob module (available from CPAN) gives more portable glob functionality.

Within Perl, you may use this directly:

        $filename =~ s{
          ^ ~             # find a leading tilde
          (               # save this in $1
              [^/]        # a non-slash character
                    *     # repeated 0 or more times (0 means me)
          )
        }{
          $1
              ? (getpwnam($1))[7]
              : ( $ENV{HOME} || $ENV{LOGDIR} )
        }ex;