use IO::File; $filename = 'file.txt'; $filehandle = new IO::File; $filehandle->open("<$filename") or die "Cannot open $filename"; ($dev, $ino, $mode, $nlink, $uid, $gid, $rdev, $size, $atime, $mtime, $ctime, $blksize, $blocks) = $filehandle->stat; print "$filename is $size bytes long.";