"the shell"?

Well, if you're using a shell which breaks up arguments like that, and that you don't want to run your application under different conditions at any point, then yes, it would work. However, a lot of shells don't. Shells break arguments up in a number of different ways. I usually find the simplist way of making sure my app comparatively portable is to join these elements of ARGV back up. I apologies for not making this clearer at the top of my first post in this thread. And I also apologies for making it clearer that I was pointing out the problems of an equals in the value.

The example you've given would work under the system you have now like that. But I didn't miss the point, I just explained myself badly.

tlhf
xxx