How to fix " '=' expected near '. .' " error in Lua - for-loop

Question

This error occurs on line 3 of my code and I don't know why.
I'm trying to create multiple variables with x..q, but it doesn't work.
for i=1,3 do
for q=1,3 do
x..q=i+1
print(x..q)
end
end
The output should be:
2
2
2
3
3
3
4
4
4
But instead it returns the error in the title.

Answer 1

If you want to create multiple global variables, use code like this:
for i=1,3 do
for q=1,3 do
_G["x"..q]=i+1
print(_G["x"..q])
end
end
This code will create globals x1, x2, and x3.
But I think you'd be better off using a table:
x={}
for i=1,3 do
for q=1,3 do
x[q]=i+1
print(x[q])
end
end

Answer 2

I believe you are using the operator .. unintentionally.
When accessing a value of a table, the syntax is x.q. Programming in Lua: 2.5 – Tables
To represent records, you use the field name as an index. Lua supports this representation by providing a.name as syntactic sugar for a["name"]. So, we could write the last lines of the previous example in a cleanlier manner as
a.x = 10 -- same as a["x"] = 10
print(a.x) -- same as print(a["x"])
print(a.y) -- same as print(a["y"])
When concatenating a string the syntax is x .. q.
Programming in Lua: 3.4 – Concatenation
Lua denotes the string concatenation operator by ".." (two dots). If any of its operands is a number, Lua converts that number to a string.
print("Hello " .. "World") --> Hello World
print(0 .. 1) --> 01