I know the documentation says the shell is not supposed to invoked, but on win32 it is being invoked 
C:\Temp>perl -le"system qw[dir]"
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is FDB3-0FE3

 Directory of C:\Temp

08/26/2009  05:05 AM    <DIR>          .
08/26/2009  05:05 AM    <DIR>          ..
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               2 Dir(s)   2,157,553,920 bytes free

File Not Found

[download]
my @nosuch = qw[ nosuchfile ];
system {$nosuch[0]} @nosuch;
printf qq{\$?(%d)=(%s)\n\$!(%d)=(%s)\n\n}, $?,$?,$!,$!;
system @nosuch;
printf qq{\$?(%d)=(%s)\n\$!(%d)=(%s)\n\n}, $?,$?,$!,$!;
__END__
$?(65280)=(65280)
$!(2)=(No such file or directory)

'nosuchfile' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
$?(256)=(256)
$!(2)=(No such file or directory)

[download]

In reply to Re: system and $? by Anonymous Monk
in thread system and $? by rovf

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