$ perl -e 'use warnings FATAL => qw(all); eval { open(CMD, "_bad_exe_ a b c|") or die "open failed: $!\n" }; if($@){ die "$$: ERROR: $@" } print "$$: HOW DID I GET HERE?\n"; while(<CMD>){}'
11089: ERROR: Can't exec "_bad_exe_": No such file or directory at -e line 1.
11089: HOW DID I GET HERE?

$ perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.4 built for i386-linux-thread-multi
...