I second the use of bash-es PIPESTATUS, I've used it in code like this: 
my %cmds = ( 'bash' => '/usr/local/bin/bash',
             'gzip' => '/usr/bin/gzip',
             'lzop' => '/usr/bin/lzop',
             'wc'   => '/usr/bin/wc' );


my @zip_results = `$cmds{'bash'} -c '$cmds{$compress} -dc $file | $cmds{'wc'} -c ; echo \${PIPESTATUS\@}'`;
The last line of @zip_results has the status of both the 'compress' command and the 'wc' command.

In reply to Re^2: best practices for checking system return values for piped commands? by eXile
in thread best practices for checking system return values for piped commands? by markjugg

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