docs: def parse_kv(args):
      ''' convert a string of key/value items to a dict '''
  
      options = {}
      if args is not None:
          # attempting to split a unicode here does bad things
          vargs = shlex.split(str(args), posix=True)
          for x in vargs:
              if x.find("=") != -1:
                  k, v = x.split("=",1)
                  options[k]=v
      return options