problem with new multiple startupitems

[macports at parvis.nl]

> On 2018-06-03, at 16:05, Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> wrote:
> 
> On 2018-6-3 23:53 , macports at parvis.nl wrote:
>> startipitems \
>>  name testit \
>>  executable sudo -u paul /usr/local/bin/testit
> 
> Should be:
> 
> startupitems \
>   name testit \
>   executable "sudo -u paul /usr/local/bin/testit"
> 
> List elements are separated by whitespace, so if an element should
> contain whitespace, it needs to be quoted.
> 
> - Josh

I understand. 

I took the version without quotes from existing ports like pserv, that uses the old startupitem. Is this something like string versus list?