Are there dictionaries in php?

Question

For example:

$names = {[bob:27, billy:43, sam:76]};

and then be able to reference it like this:

 $names[bob]

Answer 1

http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php

<?php
$array = array(
    "foo" => "bar",
    "bar" => "foo",
);

// as of PHP 5.4
$array = [
    "foo" => "bar",
    "bar" => "foo",
];
?>

Standard arrays can be used that way.

Answer 2

No, there are no dictionaries in php. The closest thing you have is an array. However, an array is different than a dictionary in that arrays have both an index and a key. Dictionaries only have keys and no index. What do I mean by that?

$array = array(
    "foo" => "bar",
    "bar" => "foo"
);

The following line is allowed with the above array but would give an error if it was a dictionary.

print $array[0]

Python has both arrays and dictionaries. Maybe you come from a python background