value

B = value("A") is effectively the same as B = A, where A is the name of a user-defined variable. This is useful when the name of the variable is itself held in a string variable. See user-defined variables. It also allows you to read the name of a variable from a data file. If the argument is a numerical expression, value() returns the value of that expression. If the argument is a string that does not correspond to a currently defined variable, value() returns NaN.