The "&" characters are most likely being interpreted by the shell (this is on a *nix system, right?) as the "background" operator. That is, if you are not enclosing the string in single quotes on the command line, the shell thinks you wish to run those "commands" in the background.

Try using double (or single) quotes around the argument on the command line and see what happens. I.e: 

$myprog 'http://sampleurl.sample.com/DOCID=1234&DOCREV=1&DOCLOC=1234&D
+OCDIAL=~'

[download]
It helps to remember that the primary goal is to drain the swamp even when you are hip-deep in alligators.

In reply to Re: How to convert arguments to string by boftx
in thread How to convert arguments to string by fearthechris29

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