Use .bat to run another .bat with Powershell, with spaces in arguments

Question

I'm trying to get a batch file to use Powershell to run another batch file. The first batch is to be run with cmd (i.e. by clicking on it).

a.bat

POWERSHELL Start-Process -FilePath b.bat -ArgumentList 'a b','c d' -verb runas >nul 2>&1

b.bat

ECHO %1
ECHO %2
ECHO %3
ECHO %4
ECHO %*
SET /P=Press enter to exit...

I've tried various argument lists, but I can't pass an argument with spaces. Here is what I've observed based on what I've tried. Hopefully at least some of these are wrong.

• All spaces and commas are used to separate arguments. They are retained in %* but are not included in any of the single arguments.
• The entire argument list, or each part with spaces, must be enclosed in single quotes if there are any spaces. Other than that, all single and double quotes are stripped.
• Backticks ` are interpreted as normal characters, and do not escape quotation marks.
• Single backslashes crash the script, and double backslashes are interpreted as normal single-backslash characters.

Here are some of my attempts at argument lists which inform the above:

• '"a b","c d"'
• '"a b" "c d"'
• '`"a b`"'
• '"`"a b`""'
• '`""a b"`"'
• '\\"a b\\"'
• '\"a b\"' - error
• '`'a b`'' - error

How can I pass an argument list with arguments that have spaces?

Context: my aim is to run a .bat which calls another .bat with arguments, which then uses Powershell to call itself with admin privileges while retaining the arguments. I've gotten it to work except when the arguments have spaces.

Answer 1

Pass the string value with double-quotes, then use ~ to strip the argument of quotes in the batch script:

ECHO %~1
ECHO %~2
ECHO %*
SET /P=Press enter to exit...

Then:

Start-Process .\b.bat -ArgumentList '"a b"', '"c d"'

Alternatively, invoke the script directly and let PowerShell take care of quoting the arguments:

# use splatting, let PowerShell handle argument quoting
$batchArgs = @('a b', 'c d')
& .\b.bat @batchArgs