For example: something along these lines (doesnt' work of course, but you see the intent):

ArrayList <String> variableNames = new ArrayList <String> ();

void setup(){

      variableNames.add("name1");

      variableNames.add("name2");

      variableNames.add("name3");

      //extract string form arraylist to name the new float

     public float (String)variableNames.get(i) = 100;

}

void draw(){

      //now access the variable using the same string to modify it

      (String)variableNames.get(0) = 500;

}

this is primarily for the purposes of creating new objects from a list of names extracted from an xml file. these objects need to be acted upon later in the sketch using ControlP5 sliders.

Thanks for your help!

Not sure if this is the correct forum for this topic, maybe in programming? I'm attempting a simple proof of concept and will extend to more complex designs once i get my head around how  to do it: I'd like to control the x & y location of a point with a slider. Please take a look at my code and tell me why the point does not move? (totally confused noob here)

Thanks to  st33d for the base code which I modified ( http://processing.org/discourse/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1218148740)

Thanks so much for the help!