Why are string parameters turn green sometimes?

[magneto]

Hi,

The title might be misleading but basically if you paste a string reference into string parameters such as the Group parameter of other operators, sometimes it's only shown as 'chs("../parm")`, but sometimes it's shown without the quotes and the background shows as green.

I know the necessity to keyframe string parameters in python but this is hscript. Also this sort of change seem to happen afterwards. Like I create some operator with many references inside. And then later when I look at inside, some string parameter references show up normal (black background) while others show up as green.

Is this normal? Or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks

[Jordan Walsh]

Would it be because without the ` ` houdini sees it as an expression and therefore stores it in a key frame (green background) and with the `` houdini sees it as an unexpanded string value and therefore still basically a string and stays black? Im just guessing but that seems to make sense to me.

[magneto]

Thanks but if I don't use quotes, then Houdini thinks it's a string literal. I actually copy paste references not strings so Houdini automatically inserts them. But later I found some of them with green backgrounds and some of them not. The ones with green backgrounds don't have quotes of course.

I just don't know if Houdini keyframes these parameters automatically.