Getting STDOUT, STDERR, and response code from external *nix command in perl

Question

I want to execute an external command from within my Perl script, putting the output of both stdout and stderr into a $variable of my choice, and to get the com

Answer 1

Actually, the proper way to write this is:

#!/usr/bin/perl
$cmd = 'lsss';  
my $out=qx($cmd 2>&1);
my $r_c=$?;
print "output was $out\n";
print "return code = ", $r_c, "\n";

You will get a '0' if no error and '-1' if error.