Ok cool thanks. Found this after looking at your post

$? = The status returned by the last pipe close, backtick(``) command or system operator. Note that this is the status word returned by the wait() system call, so the exit value of the subprocess is actually ($? >>*). $? & 255 gives which signal, if any, the process died from, and whether there was a core dump.

Tested it and it seems to work as expected and allows me to handle the errors.

Ransom