mysqldump , how to check for errors

I am automating backup of mysql using mysqldump, on linux. I will run the script from cron. I need a way to find out if the command has succeeded or failed. For example when I had corrupted tables the mysql dump was not backing up database and I did not know about it

I am using php to execute linux commans, so the script is PHP but command as shell, so in essence it is shell script

$command= '/usr/bin/mysqldump --add-drop-table  -h localhost -u agir2 -ppassword agir2 > '.$sql_dump_file.' > '.$errorlog.' 2>&1'
 
the problem with above code it that it does report error on failure, but on success it outputs whole database in to log file.
 
I am happy to rewrite above or just use bash script.

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