But with system that is different. See the doc. Check for a number of -1 to die on start failure: 
system("blah foo beer!") <> -1 or die "error: $?";

[download]

To die on the exit call, maybe you'd better use some elaborate sceme: 

system( @args ) == 0 or syscall_error( $?, "system @args" );

sub syscall_error(
  my $error = shift;
  my $name = shift;
  die "$name failed: $!" if $error == -1;
  die "$name returned error: ", $error >> 8,
    ", signal: ", $error & 127, 
    " and dumped_core: ", $error & 128;
}

[download]
The last sub pulled from the literal info in system.

Hope this helps,

Jeroen
"We are not alone"(FZ)
Updated

In reply to Re: Handling weird return values with or die by jeroenes
in thread Handling weird return values with or die by mvaline

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