Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

shift

Synopsis

                     shift [variable]

If variable is given, shift the words in a wordlist variable; i.e., name[2] becomes name[1]. With no argument, shift the positional parameters (command-line arguments; i.e., $2 becomes $1. shift is typically used in a while loop. See additional example under while.

Example

                     while ($#argv)      
                     While there are arguments
                     if (-f $argv[1])  
                            wc -l $argv[1]
                         else
                            echo "$argv[1] is not a regular file"
                         endif
                         shift           
                     Get the next argument
                     end