Perl allows this through symbolic references... but their use results in messy code that is difficult to maintain, and violates strict (which should always be used).

You should use a different type of data structure instead - arrays and hashes are very appropriate here. 

my @work_array;
$work_array[5] = "plumbing";

my %work_hash;
$work_hash{5} = "plumbing";

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In reply to Re: Using variable contents in new variable name by imp
in thread Using variable contents in new variable name by antioch

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