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";

    • File: arrayassociative1.php

    PHP Example

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

    Output

    Sonoo salary: 550000 Vimal salary: 250000 Ratan salary: 200000

    File: arrayassociative2.php

    PHP Example

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

    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 Example

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

    Output

    Key: Sonoo Value: 550000 Key: Vimal Value: 250000 Key: Ratan Value: 200000