Jsub strips the quotes of arguments. When the quoted argument includes special bash characters like "(", "|" or "&", then the job submission fails.
Jsub should always keep the quotes of arguments.
Example:
$ jsub grep -E "^(a|b)$" foo.txt
NB: I wrote a workaround in https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Tools/Help#Quoted_arguments
Version: unspecified
Severity: normal
Actually, no, jsub doesn't strip anything :-). The problem lies with qsub, SGE's job submitter, and is practically unfixable in a reliable way. The recommendation is to use a wrapper script.
I don't like to write scripts just for one-off jobs, but so be it (I'm content with my workaround). I updated the help section I mentioned.
(In reply to comment #2)
I don't like to write scripts just for one-off jobs, but so be it (I'm
content
with my workaround). I updated the help section I mentioned.
I don't either (especially as this poses questions like when can you safely remove the wrapper scripts from the disk, etc.), but as the quoting behaviour of qsub depends on the -b option, it's very easy to become confused otherwise.