my $root = 'c:/somedir/'; my @dirs = ($root); my @files; for my $path (@dirs){ opendir ( DIR, $path ) or next; # skip dirs we can't read while (my $file = readdir DIR) { next if $file eq '.' or $file eq '..';# skip dot files next if -l $path.$file; # skip sym links if ( -d $path.$file ) { push @dirs, $path.$file.'/'; # add dir to list } else { push @files, $path.$file; # add file to list } } closedir DIR; }