Parsing strings into numbers

function parseString2Num(inString)
    string inString
    
    string trueFalseList = "false;true;"
    string yesNoList = "no;yes;"
    string dayList = ";mon;tue;wed;thu;fri;sat;sun;"
    string fullDayList = ";monday;tuesday;wednesday;thursday;friday;saturday;sunday"
    string monthList = ";jan;feb;mar;apr;may;jun;jul;aug;sep;oct;nov;dec;"
    string fullMonthList = ";january;february;march;april;may;june;july;august;september;october;november;december;"
    
    make/t/o TEMPLISTWAVE = {trueFalseList,yesNoList,dayList,fullDayList,monthList,fullMonthList}
    
    variable i
    variable which = -1
    
    for(i=0;i<dimSize(tempListWave,0) && which < 0; i+=1)
        which = whichListItem(inString, tempListWave[i],";",0,0)
    endFor
    
    killwaves/z TEMPListWave
    
    return(which)
end