Re: how to convert a string to a symbol?

[pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)]

sunway <sunwayforever@gmail.com> writes:

> What you say is close to what I want, I do want to turn a string into
> a sexp,but the string could from the minibuffer or somewhere else.
> for example, I want to write a function , it takes a string as
> argument, the function could turn the string to a sexp, eval it, and
> return the result.

From the minibuffer, you can read the s-expression directly.

Read the documentation of read-from-minibuffer!

(eval (read-from-minibuffer "Expression: " nil nil t))


Since you mention somewhere else, I'll mention also read:

(with-temp-buffer 
  (insert "(+ 1 2)\n(* 3 4)\n")
  (goto-char (point-min))
  (list (eval (read (current-buffer)))
        (eval (read (current-buffer)))))

Read the documentation of read!

If you don't know it already: 
C-h f read RET
C-h f read-from-minibuffer RET

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__                     http://www.informatimago.com/

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