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.