How to pass macro definition from "make" command line arguments (-D) to C source code?

Call make command this way:

make CFLAGS=-Dvar=42

And be sure to use $(CFLAGS) in your compile command in the Makefile. As @jørgensen mentioned , putting the variable assignment after the make command will override the CFLAGS value already defined the Makefile.

Alternatively you could set -Dvar=42 in another variable than CFLAGS and then reuse this variable in CFLAGS to avoid completely overriding CFLAGS.

Just use a specific variable for that.

$ cat Makefile 
all:
    echo foo | gcc $(USER_DEFINES) -E -xc - 

$ make USER_DEFINES="-Dfoo=one"
echo foo | gcc -Dfoo=one -E -xc - 
...
one

$ make USER_DEFINES="-Dfoo=bar"
echo foo | gcc -Dfoo=bar -E -xc - 
...
bar

$ make 
echo foo | gcc  -E -xc - 
...
foo

Call make this way

make CFLAGS=-Dvar=42

because you do want to override your Makefile's CFLAGS, and not just the environment (which has a lower priority with regard to Makefile variables).