Transform every two array items into associative array pairs

Question

I'm trying to make an associative array from my string, but nothing works and I don't know where the problem is.

My string looks like:

$string = "somethink;452;otherthink;4554;somethinkelse;4514"

I would like to make an associative array, where "text" is the key, and the number is value.

Somethink => 452 otherthink => 4554 Somethinkelse => 4514

I tried to convert the string into an array and then to the associative array but it's not working. I decided to use:

$array=explode(";",$string);

Then tried to use a foreach loop but it's not working. Can somebody help?

Answer 1

Using regex and array_combine:

$string = "somethink;452;otherthink;4554;somethinkelse;4514";

preg_match_all("'([A-Za-z]+);(\d+)'", $string, $matches);
$assoc = array_combine($matches[1], $matches[2]);

print_r($assoc);

Using a traditional for loop:

$string = "somethink;452;otherthink;4554;somethinkelse;4514";
$arr = explode(";", $string);

for ($i = 0; $i < count($arr); $i += 2) {
    $assoc[$arr[$i]] = $arr[$i+1];
}

print_r($assoc);

Result:

Array
(
    [somethink] => 452
    [otherthink] => 4554
    [somethinkelse] => 4514
)

Note that there must be an even number of pairs; you can add a condition to test this and use a substitute value for any missing keys, or omit them.