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Efficient Lookups: Associative arrays provide average constant time complexity for lookups. This means retrieving a contact&#x27;s phone number by name is very fast, even with a large number of contacts.
Uniqueness: Associative array keys (in this case, contact names) are unique by nature, preventing duplicate entries and maintaining data integrity.
Readability: The syntax for accessing associative array entries is straightforward and highly readable, making the code easier to understand and maintain.
Flexibility: PHP&#x27;s associative arrays can hold a variety of data types as values, enabling the easy extension of the address book to store additional information, such as email addresses, if needed in the future.

Introduction

Welcome! Today, we will explore creating a simple address book application using PHP and its associative arrays. This task will help you understand how to manipulate associative arrays in PHP, focusing on adding, retrieving, and deleting entries. By the end of this lesson, you'll have a solid grasp of these fundamental operations.

Introducing Methods to Implement

In this task, we will implement three methods to manage our address book:

function addContact($name, $phoneNumber): Adds a new contact. Returns false if the contact already exists; otherwise, adds the contact and returns true. In this task, let's assume phone numbers do not change, so it's not allowed to overwrite the existing contact's number.
function getContact($name): Retrieves the phone number for a given name. Returns null if the contact does not exist.
function deleteContact($name): Deletes a contact with the given name. Returns true if the existing contact is deleted; false otherwise.

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