How can I define a string literal on the GCC command line?

Two options. First, escape the quotation marks so the shell doesn’t eat them:

gcc -Dname=\"Mary\"

Or, if you really want -Dname=Mary, you can stringize it, though it’s a bit hacky.

#include <stdio.h>

#define STRINGIZE(x) #x
#define STRINGIZE_VALUE_OF(x) STRINGIZE(x)


int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    printf("%s", STRINGIZE_VALUE_OF(name));
}

Note that STRINGIZE_VALUE_OF will happily evaluate down to the final definition of a macro.

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