How does “FOR” work in cmd batch file?

Question

I\'ve been programming in dozens of languages for 20 years but I could never understand how \"FOR\" work in windows cmd shell batch file, no matter how hard I tried. I read

Answer 1

I know this is SUPER old... but just for fun I decided to give this a try:

@Echo OFF
setlocal
set testpath=%path: =#%
FOR /F "tokens=* delims=;" %%P in ("%testpath%") do call :loop %%P
:loop
if '%1'=='' goto endloop
set testpath=%1
set testpath=%testpath:#= %
echo %testpath%
SHIFT
goto :loop
:endloop
pause
endlocal
exit

This doesn't require a count and will go until it finishes. I had the same problem with spaces but it made it through the entire variable. The key to this is the loop labels and the SHIFT function.