Initializing Arrays
In the situations where you want to fill an array with several values before you use it, it
can become cumbersome to write an assignment for each element. PHP offers the array
function to help in this matter. It takes a list of values and returns an array. Listing 5.4
uses array to build an array of the months of the year.
Each value is just as it would be if it were on the right side of the assignment operator.
Commas separate the values. By default, as with using empty brackets, elements will be
numbered starting at zero. You can override this by using the => operator. In Listing 5.4 I
have set January to have the index 1. Each subsequent element is indexed by the next
integer.
You aren't limited to setting the index for the first element, of course. You can assign the
index for every element. And you aren't limited to assigning integers as indexes. Listing
5.5 builds an array for translating various ways to write a month into a single form.