Batch File Variables

Contents

Declaration

Variables are declared with the set [[Batch/BuiltinCommands#Set|builtin.

set foo=bar

Variables are accessed by their name. A percent sign (%) must surround the name.

set bar=%foo%

If a variable's value includes a character that the shell will interpret specially, quote the variable.

set bar="%foo%"

If a variable is not set, no substitution occurs.

set MyVar=
echo %MyVar% # '%MyVar%'

Variable	Value
`%#`	number of arguments
`%$`	all arguments as a string
`%*`	all arguments as a string, unmodified by the `shift` builtin
`%@`	all arguments as a string, but each token is quoted

The name of a command is stored in %0.

The first argument to the command is stored in %1. And so on until the 9th argument, %9.

For additional arguments, use the shift builtin to move them into the 9 accessible variables.

To get all arguments as a string (like %$) starting from index n, try %n$. To get all arguments until index n (non-inclusive), try %-n$.