How to know the exit status of sub-commands running with backticks in Perl.

[kkurnala]

Dear Perl Monks, I am a novice in perl and currently stuck with a problem. please help. My code has lines like:

}elsif ($branchurl =~ /sites/) {
        $outfile_merge = 'STARTING MERGE FOR sites\n==================
+================\n';
   $branchurl =~ /sites\/(.+)\/branches/i;
        print "$1";
        $outfile_merge = `cd trunk/sites/$1; svn merge --dry-run $bran
+churl .`;
        print " 5 - $outfile_merge\n";
    }

In the above snippet, I want to know if there is an error with the cd command or svn merge command and come out of the loop with a error message Can one of you recommend what best I can do please? Thanks a tonne !!

[ikegami]

It sets $? like system.

[kkurnala]

can you please explain a little more? Thanks :)

[GrandFather]

You may wish to read perlvar in addition to the system documentation already mentioned. Search for $?.

Note too that if backticks fails it will set the special variable $!.