need ability to tell if array is associative or not - bug?

[Jason Vas Dias]

Good day list -

There seems to be no way of testing if an array variable is associative or not ,
yet attempting to make associative assigments to a normal array results in a
syntax error .

I have something like:

    declare -xr TYPE_ARRAY=0 TYPE_ASSOC=1
    function f()
    {  declare -n an_array=$1;
       local type=$2;
       case $type in
         $TYPE_ASSOC)
              an_array['some_value']=1;


    }