# Reading repr() string to object?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/reading-repr-string-to-object/28548>\
**Category:** Performance\
**Created:** [September 9, 2019, 1:13am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/reading-repr-string-to-object/28548 "2019-09-09T01:13:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nmatzke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nmatzke/32/7853_2.png) [@nmatzke](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nmatzke)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 1:13am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/reading-repr-string-to-object/28548/1 "2019-09-09T01:13:28Z")

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Hi all,

In R, the functions dput() and dget() let you output an object to a string representation, and read it back in. This is handy for quickly reproducing objects for e.g. reproducible tests or for help.

In Julia, I can get a string representation of an object with repr():

```julia
tmpmatrix = [3 1; 3 2; 5 3; 5 4; 7 5; 7 6]
tmpstr = repr(tmpmatrix)
tmpstr

```

…but, is there a way to read in tmpstr into a matrix object again?

Any help appreciated. Cheers!  
Nick

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![xiaodai](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/xiaodai/32/15937_2.png) [@xiaodai](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/xiaodai)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/reading-repr-string-to-object/28548/2 "2019-09-09T02:02:54Z")

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```julia
eval(Meta.parse(tmpstr))

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nmatzke](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/nmatzke/32/7853_2.png) [@nmatzke](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/nmatzke)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2019, 2:34am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/reading-repr-string-to-object/28548/3 "2019-09-09T02:34:14Z")

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Genius! Thanks very much!  
Cheers,  
Nick