Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!yale!Ram-Ashwin
From: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: GNU Emacs string-to-symbol function ?
Message-ID: <59005@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Date: 30 Apr 89 16:45:12 GMT
References: <1256@novavax.UUCP>
Sender: root@yale.UUCP
Reply-To: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram)
Organization: Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Lines: 10
In-reply-to: weiner@novavax.UUCP (Bob Weiner)

In article <1256@novavax.UUCP>, weiner@novavax.UUCP (Bob Weiner) writes:
> Anyone know if there is a way to convert a string to a symbol-name in
> GNU Emacs Lisp?

I don't know if this a "clean" way to do this, but here goes anyway:

    (car (read-from-string "foo"))              -->  foo
    (symbolp (car (read-from-string "foo")))    -->  t

-- Ashwin.