All, I'm having some problems with a piece of code I wrote (attached below). I'm doing a system call which is executing a script and the script either returns 0 or 1 (running as a standalone script it works fine) but within a system call it's returning -1 (whether or not the script passed and/or failed). From what I read, -1 means the system called failed, but I know the script is being executing properly because I can see the output from the script. Thoughts ? 
while (($new_sock, $c_addr) = $sock->accept())   {

   die "Can't fork: $!" unless defined ($pid = fork());

   if ( $pid == 0 )   {         # Child code

      $sock->close;

      my ($client_port, $c_ip) = sockaddr_in($c_addr);
      my $client_ipnum = inet_ntoa($c_ip);
      my $client_host = gethostbyaddr($c_ip, AF_INET);

      print "CHILD CODE [cpid::$$]: Connection from: $client_host [$cl
+ient_ipnum ", $new_sock->peerport, "] \n\n";

      while (defined($buf = <$new_sock>) )   {
         if ($buf =~ /^EXECUTE:(.*)/ )  {
            print $1, "\n";
            system("/msg/spgear/tools/bin/perl $1") || die "Could not 
+run program: $1 -- $!\n";
            my $rtn = $?;
            print $new_sock "RETURN CODE: $rtn", "\n";
         }
         else {
            print "INVALID SYNTAX\n";
            print $new_sock "INVALID SYNTAX\n";
         }
      }
      exit 0;
   }
   else  {                      # Parent code
      $new_sock->close;
      print "\nPARENT CODE [ppid::$$ cpid:$pid]\n";
   }
}

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** Update ** Actually, one thing I left out was I am using $SIG{CHLD} at the top of my code so all children get cleaned up properly. I believe this could be what is causing the bad return code ??? Also, I read the comments about using the regexp in the system call and, while I do understand your statement, once this code is integrated into the rest of my code, there is no way the client can pass in a "bad comment" (like you suggested). Without going into details, the client will only have a set up known "scripts" which will be executed. But thanks for your feedback, it is definately something I will keep in mind.

In reply to Wrong return code after a system call by TASdvlper

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