To save you some typing, you could possibly wrap your calls into

    sub system_and_die {
        system(@_) and die "system @_ failed";
    }

    eval {
        system_and_die("svn", "update", "base");
        system_and_die("svn", "update", "hostgroup");
        system_and_die("svn", "update", "host");
    };

    if($@) {
        print "Ouch! ($@)\n";
    }
[download]

Updated: system and, not system or of course :). Thanks, bart.