Why does the MEX command not parse argument -D with '*' correctly?

I am using MEX with the '-D' flag to define the constant ELEMENT_OPERATOR and would like to define this constant to be *. When compiling a C++ mex file, I run the following command:

mex mexfun.cc -DELEMENT_TYPE=int64 -DELEMENT_OPERATOR=* -output times -v

but MATLAB errors out with the following message:

 fatal error C1189: #error :  ELEMENT_OPERATOR must be defined !

However, replacing '*' with '+' works fine.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The ability to pass "*" with the -D flag with the MEX command is not available in MATLAB 7.9 (R2009b).

This is because '*' is treated as a wildcard character in MEX script.

To work around the issue, you can add a macro

#define symbol *

line in the source code.