<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"> ashok bakthavathsalam wrote at 02/29/2012 04:18 PM: <blockquote cite="mid:CAHa__CGofnThT1Di=U-tDrGuD4DseFaO5CxY3nq-ruxh-V32eg@mail.gmail.com" type="cite">I am looking for something similar to <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/ref/ToExpression.html" rel="nofollow" style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(74, 107, 130); text-decoration: none; font-family: Arial,'Liberation Sans','DejaVu Sans',sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">ToExpression</a> that is available in Mathematica. I just want to convert a string to an expression, and evaluate the expression.</blockquote> There is "eval" and similar procedures, but using that is rare outside of textbooks, and usually there is a better way to do things, such as with syntax transformers, dynamic requires, etc.  Exactly what you use depends on what you are trying to accomplish. It's good to know that "eval" is there, in case you ever need it, but most people will never need it, even if they think they do. <blockquote cite="mid:CAHa__CGofnThT1Di=U-tDrGuD4DseFaO5CxY3nq-ruxh-V32eg@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> As a first pass, my strings will include only numbers and arithmetic operators, and not even parentheses.</blockquote> For that, you may want "read" or "read-syntax". <div class="moz-signature">-- <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.neilvandyke.org/">http://www.neilvandyke.org/</a> </div> </body> </html>