Changing a string to a name

Is there any method to change a string into a name (as defined by colors api)?

I have the following table and wish to change the color of text based on an entry in this table:

colTab = {"red","white","orange","magenta"......}

term.setTextColor(colors.colTab[1])

This returns an error stating that it was expecting a name for the colors argument.

I have looked at different ways to manipulate strings and I cannot find a method to solve this, I could create a multi-dimensional table that includes a color number for each entry, however I would prefer the table to remain as it is.

Any help or pointers would be appreciated.

You are close, but you index the table slightly wrong:

colors[ colTab[ 1 ] ] --# This should be correct

This:

tableName[ "indexName" ]

is the same as

tableName.indexName

So this:

colors.colTab[1]

is the same as

colors[ "colTab" ][1]

Thankyou very much for my help, that fixed it! I probably wouldn't have worked that out by myself.