Julia: Metaprogramming, evaluate string to string assignment?

Question

Is it possible to evalute a string to an expression containing a string ? To give a mwe :

eval(Meta.parse("x = 2"))

is evaluted to:

x = 2

But I would like x to be a string itself. My naive try in making x a string:

eval(Meta.parse("x = "2" "))

which i would like to be evaluted to

x = "2"

gives me an error. Therefore, my question is: Is it possible to do this, using only strings ?

August · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-05 16:36:33Z

2

You need to escape the quotation marks:

eval(Meta.parse("x = \"2\""))

answered Oct 5, 2022 at 16:36

August

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1 Comment

Thank you ! This is exactly what i was searching for :)

Przemyslaw Szufel · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-05 17:14:18Z

2

@August has answered the question, however just one another way usually more practical when doing metaprogramming:

julia> eval(:(x= "2"));

julia> x
"2"

This nicely works with interpolation:

julia> z="hello";

julia> eval(:(x2 = $z));

julia> x2
"hello"

answered Oct 5, 2022 at 17:14

Przemyslaw Szufel

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