escape character issue Skill/Ocean

I'm trying to write an Ocean scrip that runs a MC sim.

I need to count the number of crossings of a clock signal between 2 points on every run.

I have some code that returns the number of crossings as desired, but only for a single run

crossings=length(cross(clip(VT("/out")  StartPulse 9u ) 0.3 0 "rising"  nil nil ))

StartPulse is a time extracted from another signal, using the cross function, but in the standard way specifying the edge number.

but this fails with an MC. It requires, leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 1 ) for each point.

I created a loop to work through the MC runs

for( i 1 10
numStr = sprintf(nil "%d" i)
;leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 1 )
signalName = (strcat "leafValue( VT(\"/out\") \"mcparamset\" " numStr " )")
;printf((strcat signalName "\n"))
crossings=length(cross(clip(signalName StartPulse 9u ) 0.3 0 "rising" nil nil ))
;printf("crossings = %d \n", crossings)

)

I'm creating each leafValue name as signalName using a strcat. I've added escape characters as the quotations cause issues otherwise.

if I printf signalName I get

leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 1 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 2 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 3 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 4 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 5 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 6 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 7 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 8 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 9 )
leafValue( VT("/out") "mcparamset" 10 )

as I expected, but using it in the crossings function I get this error. It seems that the escape characters are included causing an issue.

*Error* clip: can't handle clip("leafValue( VT(\"/out\")
\"mcparamset\" 1 )" srrWave:0x36ec3040 9e-06).
*Error* crossMethod: can't handle crossMethod(nil 0.3 0 "rising" nil nil nil)

Is there a better way to do this than using a loop?

And how do I fix the issue with the escape characters? 

Cheers