---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:28:27 +0200
>From: Alexander Hall <alexander@beard.se>
>Subject: Re: ksh scripting: unexpected `@'
>To: dick@uchicago.edu
>Cc: misc@openbsd.org
>
....
>Don't know if I get you right, but I'd try quoting the parameter
>substitution, e.g.
>
> ADMIN="admin@example.com"
> ...
> gpg -e -r "$ADMIN" "$ROOT/$HOST/$FN"
>

thx for the suggestions all, i've fixed the issue. the trouble was that i had an
if statement that was evaluating $ADMIN like so:

if [[ $ADMIN -ne "" ]]; then

this likely had the @ being interpreted as a regexp. i changed it to

if [ -n "$ADMIN" ]; then

and that tests the empty string. i'll post the script after i've optimized it
further and added better debugging outputs.

cheers,
jake

>/Alexander