Naming a parent with a variable in LUA

[wellbeing]

this code works perfectly except for one thing.
the issue i am having is when trying to dynamically name the parent for the created frame.

i dont know how to do it. everything i can think to send it is a string.. and that just won't do. any ideas? if there isnt a built in solution, ill have to create another table of getparent data for some new otherwise useless frames and and do more for/do structure to generate the parent name per loop.. seems there has to be a better way.

function SMmainframe:PARTY_CONVERTED_TO_RAID()
    print("converted to raid")
        
    size_of_raid = GetNumRaidMembers()
    for i=1, size_of_raid do
    name, rank, subgroup, level, class = GetRaidRosterInfo(i)
    raid_data[i] = { name=name, rank=rank, subgroup=subgroup, level=level, class=class}
    raid_slot = ("SMraidslot"..i) -- this is where i am creating the string for the "parent" parameter of frame creation.
    print (raid_slot)
    raidunit = CreateFrame("FRAME", nil, raid_slot)
    raidunit:SetFrameStrata("BACKGROUND")
    raidunit:SetWidth(108)
    raidunit:SetHeight(14)
    raidunit:SetBackdrop(backdrop2)
    raidunittxt= raidunit:CreateFontString(nil, "ARTWORK")
    raidunittxt:SetPoint("CENTER", 0, 1)
    raidunittxt:SetFont("Fonts\\FRIZQT__.TTF", 8)
    raidunittxt:SetShadowOffset(2, -2)
    tt = raidunit:CreateTexture(nil, "ARTWORK")
    tt:SetTexture(0,0,0,1)
    tt:SetAllPoints(SMraidslot1)
    raidunittxt.texture = tt
    raidunittxt:SetText(name.." - "..class)
    raidunittxt:SetTextColor(1, 1, 1, 1) 
    raidunit:SetPoint("TOPLEFT", 1, -1)
    raidunit:Show()
    end
    
    
    -- do stuff here
end

[wellbeing]

Slakah just told me in irc"

use _G[raid_slot] in the createframe parameter. works.

YAY!