Perhaps this is more of a bash problem than a Cygwin problem however Cygwin's bash is not acting like bash on Solaris. In Cygwin's bash: $ x="-l -d" $ ls $x ls: invalid option -- Try `ls --help' for more information. Now on Solaris (also running bash): $ x="-l -d" $ ls $x drwxr-xr-x 4 adefaria other 512 Feb 22 15:13 ./ What gives? -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/