Yes, that's probably a better implementation than quoting $_[0]. But the idea of wrapping the system() call to make it DWIM still seems like a win. The concept of the system interface is that you can call it with either a list or a scalar and it will do the right thing. Having to use a different syntax for the special case of a 1-item list (with spaces) doesn't feel right -- especially when its a simple hack to have perl figure this out for me.