Check out the perl faqs which specifically address this situation.

perldoc -f system

[download]

It lists how to inspect the return value from a system call.

 if ($? == -1) {
     print "failed to execute: $!\n";
 }
 elsif ($? & 127) {
     printf "child died with signal %d, %s coredump\n"
         ($? & 127),  ($? & 128) ? 'with' : 'without';
 }
 else {
     printf "child exited with value %d\n", $? >> 8;
 }

[download]

Modify to suit.

In reply to Re: error messages by thundergnat
in thread error messages by saldoman

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