# Obtaining the name of a variable as a string [duplicate]

Suppose that I have an arbitrary variable myVariable. Is there some function fun -- either built-in or one that I can define -- that will return a string "myVariable" when I pass it myVariable?

I would like the output...

myVariable = 123456;
fun[myVariable]


...to give the output...

"myVariable"

... (a string output) for some function fun. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks so much.

• Looks like you need SymbolName[Unevaluated[myvar]]. – Leonid Shifrin Sep 13 '13 at 2:05

You can give the function one of the Hold Attributes.

SetAttributes[fun, HoldFirst]


Then as Leonid suggested

fun[var_] := SymbolName[Unevaluated@var]


Without the hold attribute, this will not work.

Any of these could be a start:

ToString@((Trace@myVariable)[[1]])


Or:

StringCases[ToString[Hold[myVariable]],RegularExpression["Hold\$([[:print:]]+)\$"] -> "\$1"][[1]]

• You don't need to use StringCases/regex if you use HoldForm instead of Hold – rm -rf Sep 13 '13 at 2:38