problem connecting with libpq++ interface

Hi everybody,

I have a really strange problem . I'm trying to connect to PostgreSQL db
from witin my C++ program and using the libpq++ interface functions . But
strangely it won't connect and I'm receiving the following error message

connection to db failed.
Error returned:ERROR: PQconnectdb() - Missing '=' after 'template1' in
conninfo

.here's my code
PGconn *conn1;
const char * dbname="template1";
PgDatabase data(dbname);
conn1=PQconnectdb(dbname);
if (data.ConnectionBad())
{
cerr<<" connection to db failed."<< endl
<<" Error returned:" << data.ErrorMessage() << endl;
exit(1);
}

any idea would be appreciated. thanks in advance!
deniz