CTFTILT logging and exit values

So I have been searching for documentation about how to have CTFTILT logs its activity and/or implement error checking in some scripts based upon the exit code of the program. Can anyone help?

I have also seen CTFTILT rename the input file to ._filename and do some operation that effectively quartered the file size without printing any error/informational messages at all. What is it doing???

CTFTILT should have run without problems when you get the final defocus values (grep for Final). I have never seen CTFTILT change the input file. This sounds like some kind of problem with the inputs provided to run CTFTILT.