I hear ya but this argument style I have to live with.
It is the argument style that is used in Oracle's old 1.1 version of is report writer.
I'm trying to port our existing ksh scripts to call instead the new rwservlet that needs the parameters in an http GET or POST form parameters.
For the period of the pilot, however long that will be, I will need to have the same calls execute the old and new versions of the report.