Assign path to variable which does not exist

Question

In an effort of keeping things DRY, I am trying to assign a path to a variable that may not exist and have the following script which returns:

/apps/tmp: No such file or directory

#!/bin/bash

$WORKDIR="/apps/tmp"

if [ -d $WORKDIR ]; then 
    rm -rf $WORKDIR
fi

Is this possible or what work around is there?

Answer 1

When you create new variable, you are not using dollar $ sign. Just do:

WORKDIR="/apps/tmp"