Scripting Question

[John.Westcott at tufts.edu (John Westcott IV)]

I am working on modifying the apachectl script and I am pretty sure I am 
getting messed up by sh.

I modified a variable to include a -c when starting apache:
        HTTPD_ARGS="-d $AHOME -f conf/httpd.conf -D${USER} -c\"PidFile 
$PIDFILE\""

Later on I echo the full command I want to start apache with
       echo  $HTTPD $HTTPD_ARGS -DSSL;
The script outputs:
       /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -d /home/<username>/current -f 
conf/httpd.conf -D<username> -c"PidFile 
/home/<username>/current/logs/httpd.pid" -DSSL
        (where <username> is the correct name of the user (and contains 
only alphanumeric data))
This output is correct and copying and pasting it into a shell starts 
apache successfully.

However if inside the script I call:
       $HTTPD $HTTPD_ARGS -DSSL;      (same as the echo above)
It gives me an error message:
        Syntax error in -C/-c directive:
        PidFile takes one argument, A file for logging the server process ID

I've also tried:
    `echo $HTTPD $HTTPD_ARGS -DSSL;` within the script and I get the 
same failure message.


I think it has something to do with sh not using the quotes right in the 
HTTPD_ARGS variable and I am, unfortunately, not that proficient with SH.
I have tried every combination of quoting and escaping that I can think of.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
    John