Using a variable within a variable name

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello all, I am currently trying to over-complicate things by doing something similar to the code below:
count=1
for x in $(cat /etc/filename); do
file_$count=$(echo $variable| awk '{print $1}')
count=$(( $count + 1 ))
done

What I expected was different variable names

file_1
file_2
.
.
.
file_n

However i keep getting the error
./script[11]: file_1=value: not found

Can anyone advise what I'm doing wrong or if this is at all possible?

Thanks

For some reason,

2

Found the solution - Eval

so my script becomes

count=1
for x in $(cat /etc/filename); do
eval "file_$count=$(echo $variable| awk '{print $1}')"
count=$(( $count + 1 ))
done