How to stop an APM variable converting string to number

Hi all,

For a specific requirement, I need to add ".0" at the end of a username in APM. I'm doing this using a Variable Assign agent in the VPE.

As the username consists completely of numbers, APM automatically converts the variable to floating point number. Normally not a big problem as it's still stored in strings anyway, but unfortunately a lot of the usernames starts with one or more 0's, meaning during the conversion to floating point, it removes those leading zeroes! (...talk about APM/TCL being too helpful... ;)

Does anyone know of a way to force APM to interpret a variable and any modifications on it as strings, rather than numbers?

Thanks!