Why doesn't Perl file glob() work outside of a loop in scalar context?

Question

According to the Perl documentation on file globbing, the <*> operator or glob() function, when used in a scalar context, should iterate through the list of files matching

Answer 1

Here's a way to capture the magic of the <> glob operator's state into an object that you can manipulate in a normal sort of way: anonymous subs (and/or closures)!

sub all_files {
    return sub { scalar <*> };
}

my $iter = all_files();
print $iter->(), "\n";
print $iter->(), "\n";
print $iter->(), "\n";

or perhaps:

sub dir_iterator {
    my $dir = shift;
    return sub { scalar glob("$dir/*") };
}
my $iter = dir_iterator("/etc");
print $iter->(), "\n";
print $iter->(), "\n";
print $iter->(), "\n";

Then again my inclination is to file this under "curiosity". Ignore this particular oddity of glob() / <> and use opendir/readdir, IO::All/readdir, or File::Glob instead :)