How do I get the exit code of an external program?

I wish to use Ping to test if some IP addresses are up... Now I could run the command and parse to find various string components like this: [root@daevid bin]# ping -n -c 3 -w 2 -q 192.168.1.60 PING 192.168.1.60 (192.168.1.60) from 192.168.1.1 : 56(84) bytes of data. --- 192.168.1.60 ping statistics --- 2 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% loss, time 1012ms [root@daevid bin]# ping -n -c 3 -w 2 -q 192.168.1.4 PING 192.168.1.4 (192.168.1.4) from 192.168.1.1 : 56(84) bytes of data. --- 192.168.1.4 ping statistics --- 2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% loss, time 999ms rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.322/0.340/0.358/0.018 ms but it would be much more efficient if I could just use the built in exit codes that 'ping' provides as per 'man ping': "If ping does not receive any reply packets at all it will exit with code 1. If a packet count and deadline are both specified, and fewer than count packets are received by the time the deadline has arrived, it will also exit with code 1. On other error it exits with code 2. Otherwise it exits with code 0. This makes it possible to use the exit code to see if a host is alive or not." So it seems to me there needs to be another PHP function like exec(), shell(), etc. that is the equivillent of the php exit() function but for external programs. One that simply returns the integer exit code of an executed shell program... http://daevid.com