I need to parse command line arguments coming in from a ksh script.
Arguments come in with the following format...
key=value
The key may not have spaces or an equal sign in it.
The value may have any characters in it
An example would be something like...

vchtyp=I jrnltyp=D lexwhere="'in('DIS', 'DIM', 'DIR')'" title="'this i
+s a title'"
[download]

Note that the lexwhere and title parameters have spaces in them.
I need the results to be put into a hash like...

$hash{vchtyp} = 'I'
$hash{jrnltyp = 'D';
$hash{lexwhere} = "'in('DIS', 'DIM', 'DIR')'";
$hash{title} = "'this is a test'";
[download]

There must be an easier way to parse this than what I've come up with.
Here is my mess.

sub parseArgs {
   my (@args) = @_;
   my @chars = split(// , join(' ', @args));
   my %params = ();
   my $label = '';
   my $value = '';
   my $inLabel = 0;
   my $inValue = 0;
   my $doubleQuotes = 0;
   my $singleQuotes = 0;
   my $isSpace = 0;
   my $isEquals = 0;
   my $isDoubleQuote = 0;
   my $isSingleQuote = 0;
   for my $char (@chars) {

      $isSpace = $char =~ /\s/;
      $isEquals = $char eq '=';
      $isDoubleQuote = $char eq '"';
      $isSingleQuote = $char eq "'";

      if ($inLabel) {
         if ($isEquals) {
            $inLabel = 0;
            $inValue = 1;
         }
         else {
            $label .= $char;
         }
      }
      elsif ($inValue) {
         $doubleQuotes++ if $isDoubleQuote;
         $singleQuotes++ if $isSingleQuote;
         if ($isSpace) {
            if (($singleQuotes % 2) == 0 && ($doubleQuotes % 2) == 0) 
+{
               $inValue = 0;
               $params{$label} = $value;
               $label = '';
               $value = '';
            }
            else {
               $value .= $char;
            }
         }
         else {
            $value .= $char;
         }
      }
      elsif (!$isSpace) {
         $inLabel = 1;
         $label .= $char;
      }

   }
   if ($inValue && $label && $value) {
      $params{$label} = $value;
   }
   return %params;
}
[download]

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Edit by thelenm: changed pre tags to code tags

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