Maps or associative arrays are similar to those found in PHP, as well as having similarities to dictionaries. They differ from ordinary lists in that they store a pair of values. It stores a key which is used to access a value. The key is the left of the fat arrow.
Since these associative arrays are also maps from a key to a value, the associated
functions are called map functions, for example map_put. Prior
to version 1.9.9, these functions started with associative_array_
instead of map_, for example
associative_array_put. Since version 1.9.9 they have been swapped around.
Both work in place of each other since prior to version 1.9.9, map_put was an aliase for
associative_array_put, however it has since been swapped around.
$a = [44 => 32, 99 => 93]
The empty associative array, which can particularly useful
when determining the type of a variable, is represented as [=>]:
$a = [44 => 32, 99 => 93] print(get_type($a) == get_type([=>]))
Prior to version 1.5.3, associative arrays were enclosed in
braces ({ }) as opposed to the square brackets
used now ([ ]). This change made only a small difference to
coding and has no effect on the underlying representation of
associative arrays.
