diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..1d0aacfaa9277ea3f972c9681a65071e61b0244e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+*.pyc
+*.py~
+*~
diff --git a/TWS/twsproxy/__main__.py b/TWS/twsproxy/__main__.py
index 5b5bf8eced458d6c71a3f00e35f7636f59857045..c930fd77fc243c63bf651ebe05a713aa520c1b1b 100644
--- a/TWS/twsproxy/__main__.py
+++ b/TWS/twsproxy/__main__.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ logging.basicConfig(filename="/var/log/tws.log",format="%(asctime)s %(levelname)
 logger = logging.getLogger()
 logger.setLevel(logging.DEBUG)
 import sys
-port = sys.argv[1]
+port = int(sys.argv[1])
 logger.debug("starting TWS proxy")
 print("starting TWS proxy")
 server = server.TWSServer(port,5)