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This might be a very bizarre question (and probably I might be advised against doing such a weird thing) but if I have a string as in v_str ='var_name' and I want to transform the contents of that code into the actual code, is that possible in MATLAB? As in:

v_str = 'var_name'
x = make_string_to_code(v_str)

translates to the functioning code:

x = var_name

which simply transforms the string to actual code.

The only way I thought of doing this is by writing a file with that code and then on the next line executing that fine, but I wanted to avoid writing files every time that I want to do this.

Also, why is this so not recommended? Why is it so bad?

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    Yes, but you don't want to. Commented Mar 21, 2016 at 17:13
  • @excaza thank you. :D somehow I missed it. Commented Mar 21, 2016 at 17:18

1 Answer 1

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You can use eval, but that doesn't mean you should, as others mentioned.

v_str = '2 + 2'
eval(['x = ' v_str]) % x = 4;
x = eval(v_str); % x = 4;

The documentation of eval can be found here: eval

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3 Comments

so making variables out of strings is NOT recommended? Why so? (sorry if this is an obvious question)
@CharlieParker because it's bad programming practice in general to have no idea where your variables are coming from; it makes it very difficult to debug. You're also blindly executing any string, which is not at all secure. It's also highly inefficient, MATLAB's JIT compiler cannot optimize eval statements.
@CharlieParker See excaza's first comment on your original post.

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