use Getopt::Long;

use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;

my %hash;
GetOptions(\%hash, 'pdcuse!', 'uamlist=s', 'loginmesg=s');
print "" . Dumper(\%hash) . "\n";
__END__
perl test.pl -u "test eins zwei drei" -l "test drei vier fuenf" -p
yields:
$VAR1 = {
          'pdcuse' => 1,
          'uamlist' => 'test eins zwei drei',
          'loginmesg' => 'test drei vier fuenf'
        };
[download]

using local instead of my doesn't alter the result, it simply works...(older SuSE, bah, perl 5.6.1)
So I'm out of luck here...
regards,
tomte

My fault, I wasn't clear enough. I wrote a command line interface to our product in my company. The parsing isn't working with spaces within it. from the Linux shell command line it works.

Linux prompt>myprog

Welcome to my program !!!

myprog prompt> set -message "hello world"      # this doesn't work
[download]

I hope now the question is clearer.

Hotshot

I hope now the question is clearer.

Not really ;-)
is myprog a shell-script, that starts perl-programs or a perl-program internally using input via STDIN to feed Getopt::Long?

I'm sorry to say, more than ever: without actual code with the right context, I for one can't help you any further,

If it is a bash-script calling a perl-script, it's with a high probability a quoting-problem.
regards,
tomte

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