Referencing a variable?

[Ian Leigh]

Hello all,

I would like to do the following:

Put a variable name into another buffer variable.
Reference the actual variable but using the buffer variable.

So I only have the name of the variable in the buffer but I want to  
put a value into the actual variable only by using the variable name  
which is stored in the buffer.

Does this make sense and can it be done? I thought simply :

put 123 into "buffer"

might work but it doesn't work that way. I have also tried various  
adds and used the value command too but I can't seem to figure it  
out. Any insight would be appreciated.

Cheers.