#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use warnings;
use File::Basename;

sub remove_files_in_empty_directories($) {
  my ($directory) = @_;

  # do nothing if the directory is not empty
  # This is the problematic part 
  return if glob("$directory/*");

  # directory is empty, remove the .Ecurep-Lenovo* files
  foreach my $file ( glob("$directory/.EcuRep-Lenovo_*") ) {
     print $file,"\n";
  }
}


my $list_file = shift @ARGV;
die "list_file is missing - Usage: $0 list_file\n" unless $list_file;
open(F,"<",$list_file) || die "can not open $list_file: $!\n";

while (my $line = <F> ) {
  chomp $line;
  my $dir = dirname $line;

  remove_files_in_empty_directories($dir);
}


##</code><code>##

/ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC3EC/.EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope
/ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC41C/.EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope
/ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC4DC/.EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope

##</code><code>##

/ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC4DC/.EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope

##</code><code>##

/ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC3EC/.EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope
/ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC41C/.EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope

##</code><code>##

drwxr-s---    4 root     swsupt          512 Apr 08 04:53 21EC3EC
drwxr-s---    4 root     swsupt          512 Apr 08 05:24 21EC41C
drwxr-s---    5 root     swsupt          512 Apr 11 12:12 21EC4DC
[1:root@itcaix23:]/ecurep/tmp/perl_test # ls -l /ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC41C
total 0
-rw-r--r--    1 root     swsupt           25 Jun 24 2016  .EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Mar 31 09:06 2017-03-31
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Apr 07 09:05 2017-04-07
[1:root@itcaix23:]/ecurep/tmp/perl_test # ls -l /ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC4DC
total 0
-rw-------    1 root     swsupt           29 Apr 11 12:12 .EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Mar 28 09:48 2017-03-28
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Apr 04 09:49 2017-04-04
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Apr 11 09:48 2017-04-11
[1:root@itcaix23:]/ecurep/tmp/perl_test # ls -l /ecurep/hw/7/7042/21/EC/21EC3EC
total 0
-rw-r--r--    1 root     swsupt           25 Nov 04 05:26 .EcuRep-Lenovo_outofscope
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Mar 31 06:26 2017-03-31
drwxr-s---    2 root     swsupt          512 Apr 07 06:26 2017-04-07

##</code><code>##

# makes no difference
return if  glob "'${directory}/*'";

# with this construct it works!
my @files = glob("$directory/*");
return if scalar @files;

# doesn't work either - prints "hi hi <directory-name>
if ( glob("$directory/*") ) {
print "hi\n";
return;
}