[racket] Question about string->symbol

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 5:43 PM, Robby Findler
<robby at eecs.northwestern.edu> wrote:
> Symbols are values (just like strings, numbers, etc). Identifiers are
> not values, but thigns that can be bound to values. The request below
> combines the two, as if they were the same thing.
>
> While it is possible to do things that approximate what you want, most

Oops-- "you want" should really have been "you ask"!

> programming problems can be solved without them (and they often bring
> in complexity that you don't really want to deal with).
>
> How about using a hash table instead? You can say:
>
> (define my-hash (make-hash))
>
> and then when you would have written
>
>  (set! number3 3)
>
> you isntead write
>
>  (hash-set! 'number3 3)
>
> and this will also work:
>
>  (hash-set! (string->symbol (format "number~a" 3)) 3)
>
> And when you would have said
>
>  number3
>
> to get the current value bound to that identifier, you instead say:
>
>  (hash-ref my-hash 'number3)
>
> hth,
> Robby
>
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 5:28 PM, Brian Moriarty <prof at ludix.com> wrote:
>> Hello! I'm new to Scheme/Racket, and have a quick question.
>>
>> Is there any way to assign an arbitrary value to a symbol created with
>> string->symbol?
>>
>> I want to do the equivalent of  (set! (string-symbol "number3") 3).
>>
>> That is, I want the symbol number3 to evaluate to 3.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for advice!
>>
>> - prof
>>
>>
>>
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