The --verbose list from tar appears on *STDERR. There are lots of ways to get at it, but here is a tidy way with PerlIO, perl 5.8+ 

{
    open local(*STDERR), '>', \my $verbosity or die $!;
    my $status = system "/bin/tar -cv *.foo 1>$tarfile";
    # parse $verbosity and log it
}

[download]
The use of a single string argument to system is not recommended, but for an archive/logging program that runs from cron there are few dangers. The single argument is desirable to invoke the shell to recognise output redirection and filename globbing.

After Compline,
Zaxo

In reply to Re: Capturing return value and STDOUT from system like calls by Zaxo
in thread Capturing return value and STDOUT from system like calls by tid

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.