$CHILD_ERROR $? The status returned by the last pipe close, backtick (``) command, successful call to "wait()" or "waitpid()", or from the "system()" operator. This is just the 16-bit status word returned by the traditional Unix "wait()" system call (or else is made up to look like it). Thus, the exit value of the subprocess is really ("$? >> 8"), and "$? & 127" gives which signal, if any, the process died from, and "$? & 128" reports whether there was a core dump.