explode() into $key=>$value pair

Question

I have this:

$strVar = \"key value\";

And I want to get it in this:

array(\'key\'=>\'value\')

I tried

Answer 1

$strVar = "key value";
list($key, $val) = explode(' ', $strVar);

$arr= array($key => $val);

Edit: My mistake, used split instead of explode but:

split() function has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 5.3.0. Relying on this feature is highly discouraged