如何查找倒数第二个命令的退出状态？

Question

I am trying to make a script where I strictly want to control the standard output. so I am redirecting everything to /dev/null and printing my own messages.

Example:

 user@root> tar zxvf samplefile.tar;> /dev/null 2>&1 ;echo $?  

 gzip: stdin: not in gzip format  
 tar: Child returned status 1  
 tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors  
 0  

tar command failed but $? is storing exit status of redirection. I want exit status of tar command.

Query:

How can I get the status of tar command also redirect all std output to /dev/null?

Answer 1

As mentioned by Subbeh and Ploutox, I should not have used ";" in between the two commands.after removing ";" ,redirection became part of the orignal command and gave the correct return code.

However I am still not sure what could be used if we need to get exit status of ($?-1).