Is there a way to pass parameters "by name" (and not by order) to a batch .bat file?

I need to be able to pass parameters to a windows batch file BY NAME (and NOT by order). My purpose here is to give end user the flexibility to pass parameters in any order, and the batch file should still be able to process them.

An example to make my question clearer:

in the command line, user does the following: somebatchfile.bat originalFile.txt newFile.txt

Inside somebatchfile.bat there is a simple statement to copy the contents of original file (first parameter %1%) to the new file (second parameter %2%). It could be as simple as the following statement: copy %1% %2%

Now, if user passes the above parameters in reverse order, the result will be far from desirable (very WRONG in fact).

So, is there a way for user to pass parameters by name: e.g. somebatchfile.bat "SOURC=originalFile.txt" "TARGET=newFile.txt" and for script to recognize them and use'em in correct places e.g. copy %SOURCE% %TARGET%?

Thanks,

Yeah you could do something like that though I don't think you can use "=" as a token delimiter. You could use say a colon ":", somebatchfile.bat "SOURC:originalFile.txt" "TARGET:newFile.txt". Here is an example of how you might split the tokens:

@echo off

set foo=%1
echo input: %foo%

for /f "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%a in ("%foo%") do set name=%%a & set val=%%b

echo name:  %name%
echo value: %val%

Running this would produce this:

C:\>test.bat SOURC:originalFile.txt
input: SOURC:originalFile.txt
name:  SOURC
value: originalFile.txt

[Edit]

Ok, maybe it was too close to bed time for me last night but looking again this morning, you can do this:

@echo off

set %1
set %2

echo source: %SOURCE%
echo target: %TARGET%

Which would produce this (note that I reversed the source and target on the command line to show they are set and retrieved correctly):

C:\>test.bat "TARGET=newFile.txt" "SOURCE=originalFile.txt"
source: originalFile.txt
target: newFile.txt

Note that %1 and %2 are evaluated before the set so these do get set as environment variables. They must however be quoted on the command line.

Other way I quite liked:

set c=defaultC
set s=defaultS
set u=defaultU

:initial
if "%1"=="" goto done
echo              %1
set aux=%1
if "%aux:~0,1%"=="-" (
   set nome=%aux:~1,250%
) else (
   set "%nome%=%1"
   set nome=
)
shift
goto initial
:done

echo %c%
echo %s%
echo %u%

Run the following command:

arguments.bat -c users -u products

Will generate the following output:

users
defaultS
products

A bit late to the party :) This is my suggestion for managing "posix like" options. For example mybatchscript.bat -foo=foovalue -bar=barvalue -flag

:parseArgs
:: asks for the -foo argument and store the value in the variable FOO
call:getArgWithValue "-foo" "FOO" "%~1" "%~2" && shift && shift && goto :parseArgs

:: asks for the -bar argument and store the value in the variable BAR
call:getArgWithValue "-bar" "BAR" "%~1" "%~2" && shift && shift && goto :parseArgs

:: asks for the -flag argument. If exist set the variable FLAG to "TRUE"
call:getArgFlag "-flag" "FLAG" "%~1" && shift && goto :parseArgs


:: your code here ...
echo FOO: %FOO%
echo BAR: %BAR%
echo FLAG: %FLAG%

goto:eof

..and here the functions that do the job. You should put them in the same batch file

:: =====================================================================
:: This function sets a variable from a cli arg with value
:: 1 cli argument name
:: 2 variable name
:: 3 current Argument Name
:: 4 current Argument Value
:getArgWithValue
if "%~3"=="%~1" (
  if "%~4"=="" (
    REM unset the variable if value is not provided
    set "%~2="
    exit /B 1
  )
  set "%~2=%~4"
  exit /B 0
)
exit /B 1
goto:eof



:: =====================================================================
:: This function sets a variable to value "TRUE" from a cli "flag" argument
:: 1 cli argument name
:: 2 variable name
:: 3 current Argument Name
:getArgFlag
if "%~3"=="%~1" (
  set "%~2=TRUE"
  exit /B 0
)
exit /B 1
goto:eof

Save the file as mybatchscript.bat and run

mybatchscript.bat -bar=barvalue -foo=foovalue -flag

You'll get:

FOO: foovalue
BAR: barvalue
FLAG: TRUE