UUID as Array Keys strangely not possible

[Robert White]

Howdy,

The following cannot work because, for some reason, the array subscript 
parser insists on doing math on array indices even when the array is 
associative instead of numeric

typeset -A UUID_TABLE
...
UUID_TABLE+=( [${SOME_UUID}]=${SOME_VALUE} )
...
some_command ${UUID_TABLE[${SOME_UUID}]}

The parser and evaluator insist on doing math on ${SOME_UUID} no matter 
how its quoted or whatever. This seems extremely wrong.

At a minimum putting the index in double quotes should suppress the 
arithmetic evaluation. In the ideal the decision to math-or-not decision 
should happen after the array type is known, thought that's probably too 
hard.

Alternately some sort of builtin hash function to map complex strings 
into usable associative array indexes would be nice.

UUIDs are simply too useful and common in current systems to sustain 
their current second-class status.

(DISCLAIMER: I'm not a subscriber to this list.)