I am trying to construct a string in C to pass to system() which needs the parameters quoted.

At execution the command needs to look like this:

$sudo -u server /u/server/exe/do_agent "active_camp" "myuserid"

I created a series of strcpy() commands to assemble the string since "active_camp" and "myuserid" are variables

wcamp = "active_camp"
agentid = "myuserid"

{
strcpy(runstr, "sudo -u server /u/server/exe/do_agent '");
strcat(runstr, wcamp);
strcat(runstr, "' '");
strcat(runstr, agentid);
}

system(runstr);

I get $sudo -u server /u/server/exe/do_agent active_camp myuserid

I need some ideas here

Why do you think you need to pass double quotes?

Sometimes inspiration waits until you finishing hitting the post button. I continued trying and came up with this revision which works.

strcpy(runstr, "sudo -u server /u/server/exe/do_agent \"");
strcat(runstr, wcamp);
strcat(runstr, "\" \"");
strcat(runstr, agentid);
strcat(runstr, "\" ");

I am sure there is a more elegant way to do this though.

I don't know -- If you look at my first code example, I was trying to pass a single quote within the double quotes (not easy to see), but they were dropping off as well.

You only need to protect shell meta-characters, and your examples have none.

Regardless, consider what is happening. The system() call, invokes a shell. That shell strips away the first layer of quotes. So you have to protect any quotes that you want to pass that shell.

You don't need the strcats - just backslash your double quote to escape it in C:

char *foo ="This is \"double quote\" protected\n";