hi, it would be really useful for me to be able to define a string literal in a Jamfile... eg: ===================================================== dll useful_variant : <template>useful src/modules/interpreter/useful_variant.cpp : # requirements <define>VARIANT <define>NAME="variant" ; ===================================================== gcc -DNAME=\"variant\" does what i want, so i've also tried <cxxflags>-DMODULENAME="variant" <cxxflags>"-DMODULENAME="variant"" <cxxflags>'-DMODULENAME="variant"' <cxxflags>"-DMODULENAME=\"variant\"" <cxxflags>"-DMODULENAME=\"\"variant\"\"" <cxxflags>"-DMODULENAME=""variant""" and various other hopeful monsters... but whatever i do, 'variant' appears in the source file as an identifier not a string. is it possible to achieve what i want with bjam??????????????????????????? cheers, and thanks in advance. Jono day-one.com