Home About Math Books Table of Contents Write for us Applied Math Essential Math History Math Education Math News Math Websites Software Suggested Reading Tutorial Unsolved Problems Associative Arrays and Cellular Automata in Octave Posted by John F . McGowan , Ph.D . in Applied Math Software on May 9th , 2011 2 responses An associative array , also known as a dictionary , map , mapping , or hash table , is a powerful data structure that is built into many modern programming languages such as Python , Perl , Ruby , and many others . An associative array is a form of content addressable memory CAM For example , when you see someone’s face , you often remember many other facts . This is John Smith . John Smith is your neighbor and lives at 123 Elm Street . John’s wife is Amanda who has long