As of Perl 5.8.0 after using this module you cannot use
       the implicit $_ or the special filehandle "_" with stat()
       or lstat(), trying to do so leads into strange errors.
       The workaround is for $_ to be explicit

           my $stat_obj = stat $_;

       and for "_" to explicitly populate the object using the
       unexported and undocumented populate() function with
       CORE::stat():

           my $stat_obj = File::stat::populate(CORE::stat(_));