but remember you cannot check return code

From perlvar, $?:

The status returned by the last pipe close, backtick (`` ) command, successful call to wait() or waitpid(), or from the system() operator.

use strict;
use warnings;

my $out;
$out = `ls /tmp`;
print "tmp status: $?\n";
$out = `ls /foo`;
print "foo status: $?\n";

__END__
tmp status: 0
ls: /foo: No such file or directory
foo status: 256
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