> then I've done the standard thing of removing the space between -d and its argument That's not standard, although it is (sometimes) allowed. What it also is

> then I've done the standard thing of removing the space between -d and its argument That's not standard, although it is (sometimes) allowed. What it also is, though, is dumb, and people shouldn't do it. It's on par with Windows folks going out of their way to use backslash for path separator in instances where a plain ol' slash will do—just because the sheer idiosyncratic obscurantism gives them delight. A couple years ago I noticed that in between the original introduction of PowerShell, which deliberately settled on using slash for file path separators, and the present day, some doofuses went out of their way to not only insist on backslash as the suggested separator, but they changed how Tab-for-autocomplete works so that existing slashes in paths written on the command line will be "fixed" and converted into backslashes. Whoever is responsible for this should never be allowed to touch user-facing software ever again.