• The shift command changes the values of the batch parameters %0 through %9 by copying each parameter into the previous one—the value of %1 is copied to %0, the value of %2 is copied to %1, and so on. This is useful for writing a batch file that performs the same operation on any number of parameters.
  
  
• If command extensions are enabled, the shift command supports the /n command-line option. The /n option specifies to start shifting at the Nth argument, where N is any value from 0 to 8. For example, SHIFT /2 would shift %3 to %2, %4 to %3, and so on, and leave %0 and %1 unaffected. Command extensions are enabled by default.
  
  
• You can use the shift command to create a batch file that can accept more than 10 batch parameters. If you specify more than 10 parameters on the command line, those that appear after the tenth (%9) will be shifted one at a time into %9.
  
  
• The shift command has no effect on the %* batch parameter.
  
  
• There is no backward shift command. After you implement the shift command, you cannot recover the batch parameter (%0) that existed before the shift.
  
  

The following lines from a sample batch file called Mycopy.bat demonstrate how to use shift with any number of batch parameters. In this example, Mycopy.bat copies a list of files to a specific directory. The batch parameters are represented by the directory and file name arguments.

@echo off 
rem MYCOPY.BAT copies any number of files
rem to a directory.
rem The command uses the following syntax:
rem mycopy dir file1 file2 ... 
set todir=%1
:getfile
shift
if "%1"=="" goto end
copy %1 %todir%
goto getfile
:end
set todir=
echo All done