From: Henrik Nyh <henrik@...>
Date: 2008-10-18T22:01:41+09:00
Subject: Re: Error Exception if script doesn't run

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 2:48 PM, jackster the jackle
<johnsheahan@sflistdb.com> wrote:
> Tim Hunter wrote:
>> ~$ ls test.rb
>> test.rb
>> ~$ echo $?
>> 0
>> ~$ ls nothere
>> ls: nothere: No such file or directory
>> ~$ echo $?
>> 1
>>
> Based on what you have described, I think I have figured out a way to
> make it work...but I still have one question.
>
> When the following command completes successfully:
>   y= `cp /home/jsmith/js.txt /home/jsmith/js2.txt`
>   puts $?
>
> $? equals 0, however if I change the path to js.txt to something that
> doesn't exist in order to make it fail, $? has a value of 256.
>
> I thought $? should always have a value of 1 when it fails? Why is it
> 256?

It is an error code, so it's sometimes other values than 1. Success is always 0.