Note also that your second line's third argument will be 'Leppala01261907' and not 'Leppala'. Text::ParseWords follows shell quoting a argument-splitting rules which means that you can construct a single argument like so: "Don't split on theses spaces "and' let me use "quotes" here' which will get you a single argument with a value of: q(Don't split on these spaces and let me use "quotes" here)