use Getopt::Mixed 'nextOption'; Getopt::Mixed::init('option1=s>o', 'option2:i>o2'); my %opt = ( option1 => 'default1', option2 => 'default2', ); while ( my ($k, $v) = nextOption() ) { $opt{$k} = $v } Getopt::Mixed::cleanup(); ## what's left is now in @ARGV