Associative Arrays in Bash

#!/bin/bash

# -A declares v to be an associative array
# [key]=vlaue
declare -A v
v=(
    ["var1"]="variable 01"
    ["var2"]="variable 02"
    ["var3"]="variable 03"
    ["var4"]="variable 01"
)

# ${!v[@]} gives us the keys
# to access the value use ${v[key]}
for k in ${!v[@]}
do
    echo "v: [$k] => [${v[$k]}]"
done


# key can have spaces
declare -A vws
vws=(
    ["var 1"]="variable 01"
    ["var 2"]="variable 02"
)

echo "vsw: [var 1] => [${vws['var 1']}]"
echo "vsw: [var 2] => [${vws['var 2']}]"

Output:

v: [var1] => [variable 01]
v: [var3] => [variable 03]
v: [var2] => [variable 02]
v: [var4] => [variable 01]
vsw: [var 1] => [variable 01]
vsw: [var 2] => [variable 02]

Reference: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/bash-associative-arrays