## STR2NUM Convert a String to a Number

Section: Input/Ouput Functions

### Usage

Converts a string to a number. The general syntax for its use is

      x = str2num(string)

Here `string` is the data string, which contains the data to be converted into a number. The output is in double precision, and must be typecasted to the appropriate type based on what you need. Note that by definition, `str2num` is entirely equivalent to `eval(['[' string ']'],[])` with all of the associated problems where `string` contains text that causes side effects.