Q:

How to retrieve the return code of a command in a short-circuit expression

After an expression:
command1 | command2

I can retrieve the first commands exit status through ${PIPESTATUS[0]}
Is there an equivalent for expressions in the form:
command3 && command4 || command5

I would like to retrieve the exitcode of command3:
command3 && command4 || command5
retval=${SHORTCIRCUIT[0]}     # how to get this value?

Preferably without creating temporary files.

A:

Elaborating devnull's approach leads to
{ c3=0; command3 || c3=$? && false; } && command4 || command5
echo $c3

.
Because every command can be replaced by
{ c=0; command || c=$? && false; }

(provided that c is initially unset if executed conditionally), this is easily extensible.

