[HTCondor-users] odd behavior of condor_qedit

[Stefano Belforte <stefano.belforte@xxxxxxx>]

It seems that with condor_qedit I can set an ad to the string "123" (or 
any numeric
I tried) but whenever I try an alphabetic string, I get undefined.
What am I doing wrong ?

[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$ condor_qedit 1641601.0 
desired_sites="123"
Set attribute "desired_sites" for 1 matching jobs.
[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$ condor_q 1641601.0 -af 
desired_sites
123
[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$ condor_qedit 1641601.0 
desired_sites="abba"
Set attribute "desired_sites" for 1 matching jobs.
[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$ condor_q 1641601.0 -af 
desired_sites
undefined
[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$ condor_version
$CondorVersion: 25.0.3 2025-10-31 BuildID: 847298 PackageID: 25.0.3-1 
GitSHA: dc94bfbb $
$CondorPlatform: x86_64_AlmaLinux9 $
[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$

It is not something I need now, but alphanumeric strings behave oddily. 
Maybe
a string can never start with a number ?

[crabtw@vocms069 cluster1641599.proc0.subproc0]$ condor_qedit 1641601.0 
desired_sites="1a"
Update aborted, illegal value for : desired_sites
Transaction failed. No attributes were set.

About the use case, I was using this in JobRouter table

ÂSET DESIRED_SITES strcat(DESIRED_SITES, "T2_US_Caltech")

where the idea is to add a site to the desired ones.

but it is setting DESIRED_SITES to a null string, so I am trying to find 
the correct way with condor_qedit for "quicker turnaround". Both claim 
to accept a classAd expression, IIUC.

Thanks for you help

Stefano