Replace errs ++ with errs = 1 in handleargs(). errs ++ is a holdover from the CISC days when everything had an "increment memory" instruction, so errs ++ was smaller than errs = 1. These days, everything is either x86, whose users obviously consider some other consideratino more important than code efficiency (or they'd be using something saner), or RISC, on which errs ++ is usually larger than errs = 1.