once again: program output and return code

[particle]

this question has been asked and answered many times. but every answer has left me wanting something more. there must be something i'm missing, what is it?

i need to capture STDOUT, STDERR, and a return code from a 3rd party executable. i have code samples below of each method. i can't include the 3rd party exe, so i wrote a little perl code~

#!/usr/bin/perl
# return.pl
print STDERR "err1!\nerr2!\n";
print STDOUT "out!\nout again!\n";
exit 1;

i figured my best bet was IPC::Open3, but this does not give me the return code. even $? is set to the pid. here's a little code sample~

#!/usr/bin/perl
# test1.pl
use IPC::Open3;
$n = "\n";
open( OUTPUT, ">&STDOUT" ) or 
    die "Can't dup STDOUT to OUTPUT: $!$n";
open( OUTERR, ">&STDERR" ) or 
    die "Can't dup STDERR to OUTERR: $!$n";

eval { $pid = open3("<&STDIN", \*OUTPUT, \*OUTERR, 'perl return.pl') }
+;
$@ && die "ERROR: $@$n";
@results = <OUTPUT>;
@errors  = <OUTERR>;
close OUTPUT;
close OUTERR;
print "---pid$n";     print $pid . $n;
print "---\$?$n";     print $? . $n;
print "---results$n"; foreach(@results) { print $_ . $n };
print "---errors$n";  foreach(@errors)  { print $_ . $n };

here's the output:

---pid
1480
---$?
1480
---results
out!
out again!
---errors
err1!
err2

as you can see, i can capture STDOUT and STDERR fine, but i can't find a way to get the exit code. $@ is the exit code from open3, should something disasterous happen. not the exit code from the executed code 'perl return.pl'.

i also tried system, to no avail~

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# test2.pl
$n = "\n";
eval{
    open( OUTPUT, "+>&STDOUT" ) or 
        die "Can't dup STDOUT to OUTPUT: $!$n";
    open( OUTERR, "+>&STDERR" ) or 
        die "Can't dup STDERR to OUTERR: $!$n";
    $return = system('perl', 'return.pl');
    chomp ( @results = <OUTPUT> );
    chomp ( @errors  = <OUTERR> );
    close OUTPUT;
    close OUTERR;
};
$@ && die "ERROR: $@$n";
print "---return$n";  print $return>>8 , $n;
print "---results$n"; foreach(@results) { print $_ . $n };
print "---errors$n";  foreach(@errors)  { print $_ . $n };

and here's it's output:

err1!
err2
out!
out again!
---return
1
---results
---errors

here i get the return code (GOOD!), but the output is not going being redirected. this looks more promising, but i'm tired so i've come for help.

the relevant links i found are listed below, for reference:

I want to capture a programs output AND I want the return status
Changing the name of STDOUT...
How can I redirect STDOUT and STDERR from a program on WIN32?
IPC::Open3
perlfunc:system

what am i missing?

=Particle