How do I drush vset a number with decimals? drush vset latest_version 6.34a
latest_version was set to &quot;6.34a&quot;

So far so good.

drush vset latest_version 6.34
latest_version was set to 6.

Hmm...

drush vset latest_version '6.34'
latest_version was set to 6.
drush vset latest_version &quot;6.34&quot;
latest_version was set to 6.
Turns out that calling Drush as follows does the trick.

&lt;-- language: lang-bsh -->

drush php-eval "variable_set('latest_version', '6.34');"


It also turns out that this is a bug, and that awesome greg_1_anderson fixed it within hours of me asking the question.