diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 29f4925988828b92f74506eb5a7e72f91529382b..659eadf19924560e144dd8fe67b08e999c287781 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ parseMetadata:
   - spike=$(singularity run 'docker://bicf/python3:2.0.1_indev' python3 ./workflow/scripts/parseMeta.py -r Replicate_RID -m "./test_data/meta/metaTest.csv" -p spike)
   - species=$(singularity run 'docker://bicf/python3:2.0.1_indev' python3 ./workflow/scripts/parseMeta.py -r Replicate_RID -m "./test_data/meta/metaTest.csv" -p species)
   - readLength=$(singularity run 'docker://bicf/python3:2.0.1_indev' python3 ./workflow/scripts/parseMeta.py -r Replicate_RID -m "./test_data/meta/metaTest.stageNew.csv" -p readLength)
-  - echo -e "${endsMeta},${endsManual},${stranded},${spike},${species},${readLength},${exp},${study},${rep}" > design.csv
+  - readLength=""${readLength}
+    echo -e "${endsMeta},${endsManual},${stranded},${spike},${species},${readLength},${exp},${study},${rep}" > design.csv
   - pytest -m parseMetadata
 
 inferMetadata:
diff --git a/workflow/rna-seq.nf b/workflow/rna-seq.nf
index 1443869ba42180f4ec83b52fb4cf15c078e1c7a5..9b77129a3b66f325d61c3bf87ba3a0466ef90da0 100644
--- a/workflow/rna-seq.nf
+++ b/workflow/rna-seq.nf
@@ -239,6 +239,7 @@ process parseMetadata {
 
     # get read length metadata
     readLength=\$(python3 ${script_parseMeta} -r ${repRID} -m "${experiment}" -p readLength)
+    readLength=""\${readLength}
     echo -e "LOG: read length metadata parsed: \${readLength}" >> ${repRID}.parseMetadata.log
 
     # gave design file