title: Convert string to a variable name
body: <p>I am using R to parse a list of strings in the form:</p>
  <pre><code>original_string &lt;- &quot;variable_name=variable_value&quot;
  </code></pre>
  <p>First, I extract the variable name and value from the original string and convert the value to numeric class.</p>
  <pre><code>parameter_value &lt;- as.numeric(&quot;variable_value&quot;)
  parameter_name &lt;- &quot;variable_name&quot;
  </code></pre>
  <p>Then, I would like to assign the value to a variable with the same name as the <code>parameter_name</code> string.</p>
  <pre><code>variable_name &lt;- parameter_value
  </code></pre>
  <p>What is/are the function(s) for doing this?</p>