FAQ: Associative Arrays - Numerical Keys

This community-built FAQ covers the “Numerical Keys” exercise from the lesson “Associative Arrays”.

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In the third code snippet on Numerical Keys under Associative Arrays, why does echo $num_array[1001] print New Element in $num_array, since there’s no previous key 1001 previously declared i don’t see how it’s possible.

The third snippet is:

$num_array = [1000 => "one thousand", 100 => "one hundred", 600 => "six hundred"];
$num_array[] = "New Element in \$num_array";
echo $num_array[1001]; // Prints: New Element in $num_array

$num_array is an associative array with integer keys (instead of string keys).
The largest key used is 1000. Then, we append a string to the array. We haven’t explicitly specified any integer or string key for this new element. But, there should be some way to access this element. If there is no key specified for an element, we should still be able to access the element by its index.
The largest integer key used in the array was 1000. The new element’s key or index will be one more than the largest integer used. So when we append the new string element “New Element in $num_array”, the element is assigned the index (or integer key) of 1001.

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