Bash associative arrays be initialized in a (...) list?

Question

Can bash associative arrays be initialized in a (...) list similarly to non associative arrays? Format?

Updating to give an answer using the comments.

Yes, the format depends on the version of bash. For GNU bash, version 4.4.23(1), it is declare -A AR=([key1]=value1 [key2]=value2)

The available default format can be found out with declare -p AR

Answer 1

Yes. For example:

declare -A assoc=(["1 2"]="3 4" ["a b"]="c d" )

If you've got a populated associated array (assoc say) and you want to see how to see how it could be initialized run

declare -p assoc

That's how I got the initialization command above.