Question

What does

echo $?

mean in shell programming?

Answer 1

This is the exit status of the last executed command.

For example the command true always returns a status of 0 and false always returns a status of 1:

true
echo $? # echoes 0
false
echo $? # echoes 1

From the manual: (acessible by calling man bash in your shell)

?       Expands to the exit status of the most recently executed foreground pipeline.

By convention an exit status of 0 means success, and non-zero return status means failure. Learn more about exit statuses on wikipedia.

There are other special variables like this, as you can see on this online manual: https://www.gnu.org/s/bash/manual/bash.html#Special-Parameters