You mean, like this alternative universe? https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms633559(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libra

You mean, like this alternative universe? https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms633559(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms6... Flipping this around, why does the 'command line' have to be a string (or a list of strings) that my program has to parse, rather than a ready-to-be-used data structure? Consider instead an alternative universe where the command-line arguments to your program are represented with something like a JSON object. Or better, a struct that the command-line interpreter can type-check.