Sorry, I'm a newbie and didn't read the whole thread. Why can't there a be a mode that options are exclusive to - && -- and if you wanted to specify an option as the value for another option you do it in single/double quotes? For example, testscript -arg1 "-arg" -arg2 I would think most programs when requiring a string for an option are NOT expecting another option. This would be a typo in the program invocation.