PHP Associative Array

PHP allows you to associate name/label with each array elements in PHP using => symbol. Such way, you can easily remember the element because each element is represented by label than an incremented number.

Definition

There are two ways to define associative array:

1st way:

$salary=array("Sonoo"=>"550000","Vimal"=>"250000","Ratan"=>"200000");  

2nd way:

$salary["Sonoo"]="550000";  
$salary["Vimal"]="250000";  
$salary["Ratan"]="200000";  

Example

File: arrayassociative1.php

<?php    
$salary=array("Sonoo"=>"550000","Vimal"=>"250000","Ratan"=>"200000");  
echo "Sonoo salary: ".$salary["Sonoo"]."<br/>";  
echo "Vimal salary: ".$salary["Vimal"]."<br/>";  
echo "Ratan salary: ".$salary["Ratan"]."<br/>";  
?>    

Output:

Sonoo salary: 550000

Vimal salary: 250000

Ratan salary: 200000

File: arrayassociative2.php

<?php    
$salary["Sonoo"]="550000";  
$salary["Vimal"]="250000";  
$salary["Ratan"]="200000";   
echo "Sonoo salary: ".$salary["Sonoo"]."<br/>";  
echo "Vimal salary: ".$salary["Vimal"]."<br/>";  
echo "Ratan salary: ".$salary["Ratan"]."<br/>";  
?>    

Output:

Sonoo salary: 550000

Vimal salary: 250000

Ratan salary: 200000

Traversing PHP Associative Array

By the help of PHP for each loop, we can easily traverse the elements of PHP associative array.

<?php    
$salary=array("Sonoo"=>"550000","Vimal"=>"250000","Ratan"=>"200000");  
foreach($salary as $k => $v) {  
echo "Key: ".$k." Value: ".$v."<br/>";  
}  
?>    

Output:

Key: Sonoo Value: 550000

Key: Vimal Value: 250000

Key: Ratan Value: 200000