IPC::System::Simple provides capture and capturex which are single- and multi-arg versions of qw respectively.

use IPC::System::Simple qw( capture capturex );

my $foo = capture("shell command");
my $foo = capturex("program");
my $foo = capturex("program", @args);
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Conveniently, they even do the error checking for you.

By the way, IPC::System::Simple can also add error checking to system.

use IPC::System::Simple qw( system systemx );

system("shell command");
systemx("program");
systemx("program", @args);
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