Do Windows batch files have a %* construction?

Question

In a batch file, do I have to do (e.g.) the following?

@echo off
call other.bat %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

Solution 1

Windows batch files (since Windows XP, but possibly earlier) support the %* construct, which evaluates to all the parameters from %1 onwards.

Unfortunately, this doesn't honour the SHIFT command, so the following won't work:

@echo off
set EATEN=%1
shift

call other.bat %*

It'll still pass the first parameter on to the second batch file.

Solution 2

You can gather all the args together using something like:

set args=%1
shift
:start
if [%1] == [] goto done
set args=%args% %1
shift
goto start

:done
(use %args% here)

This works regardless of how many arguments there are.

Solution 3

If you want to skip the first 3 parameters, for example, and pass on the rest:

@echo off
for /f "tokens=1-3*" %%a in ("%*") do (
   set par1=%%a
   set par2=%%b
   set par3=%%c
   set therest=%%d
   )

call other.bat %therest%

There may be problems with quotes in parameters.

kudos to Patrick Cuff, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/382587/how-to-get-batch-file-parameters-from-nth-position-on

Solution 4

Yes they do.

You can write your example as follows:

@echo off
call other.bat %*

Also: shift is supported on windows... See this.
But indeed, that last link confirms that shift doesn't work in combination with %*:

• Using %* with shift
  Shift has no affect on the %* batch parameter.

View more solutions

Comments

[fretje]

Sorry links were bad... should be fixed now.

[Wedge]

(quote)Using %* with shift Shift has no affect on the %* batch parameter.(/quote)

[fretje]

Why the downvote? The question was about %* not about shift.

[Marcelo Neves]

Your first answer only had "Yes they do" which wasn't an obvious link (or answer). Your last edit is much more of a decent answer, perhaps that's why...

[fretje]

Actually the downvote happened after i added more explanation. And I agree that the link on "Yes they do" wasn't obvious, but it was an exact answer to the question at hand...

[fretje]

@Roger: Off topic, but how come you already have 121 reputation, and only 2 upvotes? That means you started at 101 in stead of at 1?

[Dharma Leonardi]

Preserves all special delimiters. Supports as many Parameters as can be fitted in an 8175 character per command line limit (including batch filename, CRLF and batch path if specified). Parameters can be grouped with double quotes (eg. "sw1=/quiet /skip:1 /start=3"). Note: Double quotes are preserved. Behaviour of double quotes are expected (even if used incorrectly, eg. used only singly or " " or ""). Please debug the code first before making a bug report.

[Teja Vemulapalli]

That's very elaborate answer showing lots of debug info, though it does not directly answer the original question: how to call other.bat with given parameters:( Where do I write "other.bat"? Is it possible to remove "Parameter index(es) to extract" query? Also, cls is not needed in the final solution.

[Aaron Digulla]

Note: %* preserves whitespace/quotes.