So does 256 exit status means a successful exit of the child process?
No, you cannot exit with 256 from UNIX, only 0-255. However, if you are talking about $?, that is a different matter. As others have said, $? contains many things other than just the return code. If the child process terminated because of a signal then the signal number is in $? as well.
$exit_value    = $? >> 8; 
$signal_num    = $? & 127;
$dumped_core    = $? & 128;

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I think there has been some confusion over what you mean by an exit value.

In reply to Re^3: What is a successful return status for perl wait() in Solaris? by cdarke
in thread What is a successful return status for perl wait() in Solaris? by kduong

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