Hello goldenblue.

I am not sure if I fully understand what you are trying to accomplish. I am sure there is a better way to do this, but hopefully what I have listed below will help you. I placed the commands into a Perl module. I inserted tokens in the command hash that will be replaced based on the command input.

From a script you can include the Commands.pm module. The code below will need to be tweaked in order to parse the correct commands.

Commands.pm

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

package Commands;
use vars qw(@ISA @EXPORT @EXPORT_OK %EXPORT_TAGS $VERSION);
use Exporter;
our $VERSION=1.0;
our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
our @EXPORT = qw(%cmd_tmpl eval_cmd);
our @EXPORT_OK = qw();

our sub eval_cmd ($);

####################################################################
####################################################################

## Command Hash template
our %cmd_tmpl = 
(
    'backup' => 'token token > token',
    'list'   => 'token -le token'
);

## Evaluate command , accepts Command , Client, and Arguments
our sub eval_cmd ($)
{
    my $array_ref = shift;
    
    my $cmd = @{$array_ref}[0];
    my $client = @{$array_ref}[1];    
    my @args;
    
    if ( defined @{$array_ref}[2] )    
    {
        @args = split(/ /,@{$array_ref}[2]);
    }

    die "No such command: $cmd!" unless exists $cmd_tmpl{lc($cmd)}; ##
+ convert command to lc internally

    my $cmd_value = $cmd_tmpl{$cmd};
    
    ## update command , replaces first 'token' encountered.
    $cmd_value =~ s/token/$cmd/;
    
    ## update client , replaces first 'token' encountered.
    $cmd_value =~ s/token/$client/;
    
    ## update arguments , replaces first 'token' encountered.
    for(my $i = 0; $i <=$#args; $i++)
    {    
        $cmd_value =~ s/token/$args[$i]/;
    }    
    
    if ($cmd_value =~ m/token/)
    {
        die "Not enough aruments on [@{$array_ref}]";
    }
    return $cmd_value;
}

####################################################################
####################################################################

1;
[download]

Command_parser.pl

#/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

use Commands 1.0;

sub Get_Client();
my @clients;

die "Error. Usage \'perl Command_parser.pl -Noclient | [-Command Clien
+t1 Arguments  -Command Client2 Arguments...] \'\n $!" unless $#ARGV >
+= 0;

####################################################################
####################################################################

## If a client was not provided at the command line, get one
if (lc($ARGV[0]) eq "-noclient")
{
    Get_Client();
}
else
{
    my @current_command;
    
    for(my $i = 0; $i <=$#ARGV; $i++)
    {
        if ( $ARGV[$i] =~ m/^\-/ && $i != 0)
        {
            # eval current command , then wipe it and keep processing
            
            my $command_value = eval_cmd(\@current_command);          
+  
            print "Command is :$command_value\n";
            
            ##system($command_value);
            
            @current_command = ();
            push @current_command , $ARGV[$i];
            $current_command[0] =~ s/\-//g;
        }
        elsif ( $i == $#ARGV )
        {
            # eval last command
            
            push @current_command , $ARGV[$i];
            my $command_value = eval_cmd(\@current_command);
            print "Command is :$command_value\n";
            
            ##system($command_value);
        }
        else
        {
            push @current_command , $ARGV[$i];
            if ($i == 0)
            {
                $current_command[0] =~ s/\-//g;
            }
        }    
    }
}

####################################################################
####################################################################

## No client was provided at the command line, fill one in
sub Get_Client()
{
    my @current_command = ('backup','mars','file1.txt');
        
    my $cmd_value = eval_cmd(\@current_command); # here magic happens!

    ##security_check($cmd);
    ##system("$cmd");
}
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Input / Output

C:\monks\command_template>perl Command_parser.pl -backup client1 myfil
+e1.txt -backup client2 myfile2.txt -list client3
Command is :backup client1 > myfile1.txt
Command is :backup client2 > myfile2.txt
Command is :list -le client3
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