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

Question

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

Answer 1

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