Evaluate an expression contained within a string?

Questions
1

I’m new to Mathematica and to this forum. I’m experienced in some other languages.
I’m running version 12.1 on Windows 10

I’d like to be able to build expressions in a string and then evaluate/execute those expressions, e.g. as in the following imaginary code:

In[10]:= myExpr = "2+2";

In[11]:= evalString[myExpr] 

Out[11]: = 4 

In[12]:= evalString["Range[5]"] 

Out[12]:= {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

I thought I was onto something with WSEvaluateString, but it seems this is not what I want.

Can I manipulate expressions in this way and then execute them?

Thanks.

2

The built-in function ToExpression does the job.

ToExpression["2+ 2"]

ToExpression["Range[5]"]
3

Have you tried ToExpression? It takes a string and converts it to an expression.

4

Many thanks - exactly what I was looking for!