As stated in the original post $? works when using system("cmd...") but when using system(1,"cmd...") with waitpid it always returns -1 whether the system command was successful or not. It seems that it's returning the return code of the waitpid command itself and not the process I was waiting on.

Here is the full code example in case I'm just doing something stupid: 
my $wait = 0;
my $pid = system(1,"cmd...");

do {
    $wait = waitpid($pid,WNOHANG);
} while ($wait != -1);
$rc = $?;

print "Command completed with exit code $wait with return code $rc.\n"
+;

[download]
The output is "Command completed with exit code -1 with return code -1".

If I use the same (purposely bad) command with system("cmd...") then $? returns a value of 256 which is what I would expect when it failed and what I would like to get out of the system(1,"cmd...") call.

Thanks again.

In reply to Re^2: Getting a return code from waitpid in Windows by huskerben
in thread Getting a return code from waitpid in Windows by Anonymous Monk

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