Associative Arrays in PHP

Consider the following array, storing parts of a date:

php<?php
  $arr = [2025, 12, 31];
?>

As you already know, to get an element from this array, we need to access it by its index number. However, this is not always convenient.

Therefore, PHP allows you to set your own keys for array elements. Such an array will be called associative.

Associative arrays have the following syntax: key name, followed by an arrow =>, and then the value. Let's specify explicit keys for our array:

php<?php
  $arr = [
    'year' => 2025,
    'month' => 12, 
    'day' => 31
  ];
?>

Now we will access the elements of our array using the keys we defined. Let's do it:

php<?php
  echo $arr['year'];  // will output 2025
  echo $arr['month']; // will output 12
  echo $arr['day'];   // will output 31
?>