Bash, openssl, strange behavior on exit status - bash

Question

I'm writing a script that should do a dictionary attack on a text file passed as argument encrypted with openssl.
Here is what I wrote:
#!/bin/bash
# written by Cosimo Colaci
passwords=( $(cat italian.txt) ) # italian.txt is a list of words
for word in ${passwords[#]}
do
openssl enc -d -aes-128-cfb1 -in "$1" -k $word 2>/tmp/err
pid=$$
wait $pid
if [ -s /tmp/err ]
then
continue
else
openssl enc -d -aes-128-cfb1 -in "$1" -k $word;
break;
fi
done
I also tried
for word in ${passwords[#]}
do
openssl enc -d -aes-128-cfb1 -in "$1" -k $word &>/dev/null
exitstatus=$?
if [ $exitstatus -ne 0 ]
then
continue
else
openssl enc -d -aes-128-cfb1 -in "$1" -k $word;
break;
fi
done
The problem is that on some cicles the exit status is 0 even if decription fails, as I can see by launching:
bash -x ./crack_italian.sh filetodecript.txt
but the same command, in a terminal, behave as expected and fails.

Answer 1

while read -r word; do
if openssl enc -d -aes-128-cfb1 -in "$1" -k "$word" >openssl.out 2>&1
then
cat openssl.out
break
fi
done <italian.txt
rm -f openssl.out
You don't need to read the file into an array.
You can use the exit status directly in an if statement. Note that in your second example, the assignment of $? to exitstatus changes $?.
Variable expansions should be double quoted.
Slightly shorter:
while read -r word; do
openssl enc -d -aes-128-cfb1 -in "$1" -k "$word" >openssl.out 2>&1 &&
{ cat openssl.out; break; }
done <italian.txt
rm -f openssl.out