My understanding is that closing the handle for an IO::Pipe object should be done with the method ($fh->close) and not the built-in (close($fh)). The other day I goofed and used the built-in out of habit on a IO::Pipe object that was opened to a command that I expected to fail. I was surprised when $? was zero, and my error checking wasn't triggered. I realized my mistake. If I use the built-in, IO:Pipe can't perform the waitpid() and can't set $?. But what I was surprised by was that perl seemed to still close the pipe without setting $? via the core. I worked up a little test script to show what I mean: use 5.012; use warnings; use IO::Pipe; say 'init pipes:'; pipes(); my $fh = IO::Pipe->reader(q(false)); say 'post open pipes:'; pipes(); say 'return: ' . $fh->close; #say 'return: ' . close($fh); say 'status: ' . $?; say q(); say 'post close pipes:'; pipes(); sub pipes { for my $fd ( glob("/proc/self/fd/*") ) { say readlink($fd) if -p $fd; } say q(); } When using the method it shows the pipe being gone after the close and $? is set as I expected: init pipes: post open pipes: pipe:[992006] return: 1 status: 256 post close pipes: And, when using the built-in it also appears to close the pipe, but does not set $?: init pipes: post open pipes: pipe:[952618] return: 1 status: 0 post close pipes: It seems odd to me that the built-in results in the pipe closure, but doesn't set $?. Can anyone help explain the discrepancy? Thanks!