C:\>perldoc -f system
    system LIST
    system PROGRAM LIST
            Does exactly the same thing as "exec LIST", except that a fork
            is done first, and the parent process waits for the child
            process to complete. Note that argument processing varies
            depending on the number of arguments. If there is more than one
            argument in LIST, or if LIST is an array with more than one
            value, starts the program given by the first element of the list
            with arguments given by the rest of the list. If there is only
            one scalar argument, the argument is checked for shell
            metacharacters, and if there are any, the entire argument is
            passed to the system's command shell for parsing (this is
            "/bin/sh -c" on Unix platforms, but varies on other platforms).
            If there are no shell metacharacters in the argument, it is
            split into words and passed directly to "execvp", which is more
            efficient.

            Beginning with v5.6.0, Perl will attempt to flush all files
            opened for output before any operation that may do a fork, but
            this may not be supported on some platforms (see perlport). To
            be safe, you may need to set $| ($AUTOFLUSH in English) or call
            the "autoflush()" method of "IO::Handle" on any open handles.

            The return value is the exit status of the program as returned
            by the "wait" call. To get the actual exit value divide by 256.
            See also "exec". This is *not* what you want to use to capture
            the output from a command, for that you should use merely
            backticks or "qx//", as described in "`STRING`" in perlop.
            Return value of -1 indicates a failure to start the program
            (inspect $! for the reason).

            Like "exec", "system" allows you to lie to a program about its
            name if you use the "system PROGRAM LIST" syntax. Again, see
            "exec".

            Because "system" and backticks block "SIGINT" and "SIGQUIT",
            killing the program they're running doesn't actually interrupt
            your program.

                @args = ("command", "arg1", "arg2");
                system(@args) == 0
                     or die "system @args failed: $?"

            You can check all the failure possibilities by inspecting $?
            like this:

                $exit_value  = $? >> 8;
                $signal_num  = $? & 127;
                $dumped_core = $? & 128;

            When the arguments get executed via the system shell, results
            and return codes will be subject to its quirks and capabilities.
            See "`STRING`" in perlop and "exec" for details.