I have an iPython notebook and I can specify cython macros fine with something like

# distutils: define_macros=NAME=VALUE

but now I want to pass VALUE as a string "VALUE"

# distutils: define_macros=NAME="VALUE"

It IS passing a string, but it’s passing "__Pyx_L1_".

I tried 'VALUE' and "VALUE" but they give compile errors because ' is for a character and becomes a “stray”.