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Creating new variable names, Symbol or ToExpression

Mathematica Asked on August 12, 2021

One can create new variable names by Symbol :

In[1]  Table[Symbol["x"<>ToString[i]], {i,1,5}]
Out[1]  {x1,x2,x3,x4,x5}

But it is also possible to use ToExpression (old firend) :

In[2]  Table[ToExpression["x"<>ToString[i]], {i,1,5}]
Out[2]  {x1,x2,x3,x4,x5}

There is a difference : Symbol will produce an error for incorrect varialbe names while ToExpression will do something meaningful.

In[3]  Table[Symbol[ToString[i]<>"x"], {i,1,5}]
Out[3]  (* some error message with non-helpful output)

In[4]  Table[ToExpression[ToString[i]<>"x"], {i,1,5}]
Out[4]  {x,2x,3x,4x,5x}

Other than this, I see there is no difference. Is there a situation such that Symbol is more useful than ToExpression ?

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