You can check all the failure possibilities by inspecting
$? like this:

    $exit_value  = $? >> 8;
    $signal_num  = $? & 127;
    $dumped_core = $? & 128;

It has been over a year since i last delt with system call return values, but if my memory server me correct, you need to right shift the status return. When i last coded this, i wrote a forking server that retrieved exit codes via the $? variable:

my $status = $? >> 8;
[download]

perl -le'print 256 >> 8'
[download]

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

perl -le'print 256 >> 8' returns 1 so 1 is failure or success?

You can only say one thing about a return code of 1 ... it is not 0.

Zero is conventionally "success" ... it means "there was no error to be reported" ... hence, zero.

Everything else is treated as Not 0 ... it could mean failure, it could mean a warning, it could mean success. It is up to the person(s) who wrote the code you are running. This is why i think it is vital to capture STDERR as well.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Depends. It's the return code from the program you ran. I can write an app that returns 50 on success.

-s

Humma la beeba la seeba la booba la
Humma la beeba la seeba la bop

See perldoc perlvar for $?

Basically, $exitval = $? >> 8.