Associative arrays are arrays that use named keys that you assign to them.
There are two ways to create an associative array:
$age = array("Peter"=>"35", "Ben"=>"37", "Joe"=>"43"); or: $age['Peter'] = "35"; $age['Ben'] = "37"; $age['Joe'] = "43";
The named keys can then be used in a script:
<?php $age = array("Peter"=>"35", "Ben"=>"37", "Joe"=>"43"); echo "Peter is " . $age['Peter'] . " years old."; ?>