What does $? mean in shell scripting?

Question

I encountered $? in one of the shell scripts I work on integrating (not written by me).

Just wanted to confirm that it means the return code of the previous command.

The usage is something like

runSomeCommand $VAR1 $VAR2 $VAR3

processResult $?

possible duplicate of [what does '$?' mean in a shell script?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12741710/what-does-mean-in-a-shell-script) — devnull, May 22 '14 at 01:36
You can see the [link](http://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix/unix-special-variables.htm) Or my answers is in http://stackoverflow.com/a/26866587/1920536 — biolinh, Nov 11 '14 at 14:00

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 02 '12 at 19:26

6

$? is the exit status of the last executed command.

ls
....
echo $?
0

$ ls notexistingfile
ls: cannot access notexistingfile: No such file or directory

echo $?
2

answered Dec 02 '12 at 19:26

Karoly Horvath

thanks, that is what my assumption was that i wanted to confirm – amphibient Dec 02 '12 at 19:27

1 Answers1