Accepts: directory path Does: counts files in directory ignoring dotfiles and files named "file_list" Returns: count as an int Note: this is probably the fastest "pure perl" way to do this. It is certainly faster than reading the whole file in to an array and then processing through the array. This just processes as the directory is read.

getCount.pl

sub getCount{
  my $DH; # Directory Handle
  my $WD = $_[0]; # Working Directory
  my $DE; # Directory Entry (file)
  my $CT; # Count

  $CT=0;
  opendir($DH, $WD) or die "Cannot open working directory |$WD|: $!";
  while ($DE= readdir($DH))
  {
    next if $DE=~ /^\./ || $DE=~ /file_list/;
    $CT++;
  }
  closedir($DH);
  return $CT;
}