diff --git a/tests/funcs/exec.sh b/tests/funcs/exec.sh
index 379f1ea5..06d4c96b 100644
--- a/tests/funcs/exec.sh
+++ b/tests/funcs/exec.sh
@@ -39,6 +39,18 @@ t_quiet()
 		t_fail "quiet command failed"
 }
 
+#
+# Quietly run a command during a test.  The output is logged but only
+# the return code is printed, presumably because the output contains
+# a lot of invocation specific text that is difficult to filter.
+#
+t_rc()
+{
+	echo "# $*" >> "$T_TMP.rc.log"
+	"$@" >> "$T_TMP.rc.log" 2>&1
+	echo "rc: $?"
+}
+
 #
 # redirect test output back to the output of the invoking script intead
 # of the compared output.