Getting the errorlevel from a system call

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: Getting the errorlevel from a system call by thor (Priest) on Jun 18, 2004 at 21:42 UTC
Maybe I'm missing something, but you say that you have an app that's returning a four-byte value, and yet $?>>8 is only letting you read the first four bytes. Wouldn't the first four bytes in a four-byte value constitute the entire value? thor	[reply]
Re^2: Getting the errorlevel from a system call by ambrus (Abbot) on Jun 18, 2004 at 21:55 UTC
"first of the four bytes" the op has said.	[reply]
Re^3: Getting the errorlevel from a system call by thor (Priest) on Jun 18, 2004 at 22:54 UTC
eep...that's what I get for reading too fast. Now off to answer the original question. thor	[reply]
Re: Getting the errorlevel from a system call by thor (Priest) on Jun 18, 2004 at 23:15 UTC
the $?>>8 construct shifts the $? value to the right by 8 bits. In order to examine the entire value, don't bit-shift it. However, perldoc perlvar has this to say about $?: This is just the 16-bit status word returned by the wait() system call (or else is made up to look like it). Where I come from, 16-bit values equate to 2-byte values, not four. thor	[reply]