Though it seems (from that list traffic you linked) that it's not typical for some duffer (read: me) to just modify a Module as storied and widespread as File::Find

Anyhow, it looks to me as though the $File::Find::prune way mentioned by grinder might be the way to go...

i'm pretty sure that the files i want will always be found first, since they're the most recent ones. Every time i've run this, the output array fills up in most-recentness order, on linux and solaris both. Clearly it's not alphabetical (as someone mentioned), and in fact i'm depending on this characteristic in another part of the script (there's a way to make it more robust, i'll do that later).

i'm not sure i totally understand your code, but i'll study it when i get home and can play.... thanks!