How do I get the integer value from a edit box?

The only way I know of getting the value of an edit box is getting it as a string. How do I assign it as an integer. My edit box input is '123'. How do I retrieve it and store and an integer. I tried the code below but it didnt work

widthBox=get(handles.edit5,'String');
ws = str2num(widthBox);

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Looks like it should work. Why do you say it doesn't?

[Recap]

I get the error

Error using str2num (line 32)
Requires string or character array input.

widthBox contains 123 which is taken from the editbox in my GUI.

widthBox = 

      '123'

[Recap]

Its ok now, im using str2double and it seems to do the job.

[Image Analyst]

perhaps it's a cell, which might happen if you have the max property set to bigger than 1. So try to use char() or cell2mat() to cast it to a character.

editBoxContents = get(handles.edit5,'String');
ws = str2double(char(editBoxContents));
% or
ws = str2double(cell2mat(editBoxContents));