system() does a wait() for the /bin/ls process to complete. When the process ends, your handler jumps in and grabs it, and system() gets nothing, which isn't what it wanted. If you run a command that has a side effect, you should see that it actually does get executed.

It's interesting that it worked on Linux but not Solaris. Must be some difference in the way they deliver signals.

Best solution is probably not to mix $SIG{CHLD} with system(). There are a couple of threads around here that might be useful... try a search or two.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: system() call failure by no_slogan
in thread system() call failure by lestrrat

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