system("$command"); will never throw an exception for eval {} to catch. On error, system returns an error code, not an exception. Please refer to the documentation. (By the way, $? is set to system's error code.)

Please please please use a list for system's arguments whenever possible. It is MUCH safer since it doesn't involve the shell. (What if $pdffile contained a "?) 

my @command = ('htmldoc', '--webpage', '-f', $pdffile, $htmlfile);

my $rv = system(@command);

die("Unable to execute htmldoc: $!\n")
   if $rv == -1;
die("htmldoc was unable to complete the request (Exit code = $&)\n")
   if $rv;

... success! ...

[download]

Update: Expanded code to show error handling.

In reply to Re: Another eval $@ question by ikegami
in thread Another eval $@ question by PugSA

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