Thanks to Leo Alekseyev for pointing this out. * lisp/ob-ref.el (org-babel-ref-parse): Allow passing empty strings into code blocks.
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ the variable."
(cons (intern var)
(let ((out (org-babel-read ref)))
(if (equal out ref)
- (if (string-match "^\".+\"$" ref)
+ (if (string-match "^\".*\"$" ref)
(read ref)
(org-babel-ref-resolve ref))
out))))))