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If you think about it, you will realise that Knuth's command definition syntax:
\def\blah#1#2 ... #9{<macro body>}
is intrinsically limited to just 9 arguments. There's no direct way round this: how would you express a 10th argument? - and ensure that the syntax didn't gobble some other valid usage?
If you really must have more than 9 arguments, the way to go is: <!– {% raw %} –
>
<
!– {% endraw %} –
>
T
his technique is easily extendible by concert pianists of the TeX keyboard, but is really hard to recommend.
LaTeX users have the small convenience of merely giving a number of
arguments in the \newcommand that defines each part of the
relaying mechanism: Knuth's restriction applies to \newcommand
just as it does to \def. However, LaTeX users also have the
way out of such barbarous command syntax: the keyval
package. With keyval, and a bit of programming, one can
write really quite sophisticated commands, whose invocation might look
like:
<!– {% raw %} –
>
\flowerinstance{species=Primula veris, family=Primulaceae, location=Coldham's Common, locationtype=Common grazing land, date=1995/04/24, numplants=50, soiltype=alkaline }
<
!– {% endraw %} –
>
T
he merit of such verbosity is that it is self-explanatory: the typist
doesn't have to remember that argument twelve is soiltype, and so
on: the commands may be copied from field notes quickly and
accurately.