Can someone help me out with my code. Its a bit of a mess.

I've been writing a program to sort elements in an SQL table by first dividing them by a certain key, then cutting the table in half, then sorting by a different key, dividing by half again, sorting again.. etc. There are four different keys. I'm a bit new to PHP, but I know how to do this in java and C++. Pretty much I've been trying to use associative, two deminsional arrays but its not working out to well. I get this error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_DOUBLE_ARROW on line 113

I've pointed out the place where I get the error. There is much more to the file than I'm going to post (because its a huge file and the rest works for sure). If you see any values you don't see assigned, assume they are valid.

//Establish link to database
$link = mysql_connect($dbhost, $dbusername, $dbpass) 
	or die("Failed to connect to database.");
print "Connected to database<br>";
//Select the database
$selected = mysql_select_db($dbname, $link) 
	or die("Could not select the database.");

//Get number of rows
$count = mysql_query('SELECT COUNT(host_id) FROM rate_hosts');
//Prepares to sort and divide by 2
$desired = (int) $count/2;
$hosts[$desired - 1];

$results = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM rate_hosts ORDER BY '$first' DECS;");
print 'working';
$i = 0;
//start sorting
while($row = mysql_fetch_array( $result ) and $i < $desired) 
{
	$hosts[$i] = $row[$second] => $row;  //I GET THE ERROR HERE
	$i++;
}

$desired = (int) $desired/2;
if($desired > 1)
{
	krsort($hosts);
	$index = 0;
	foreach ($hosts as $key => $val) 
	{
    	$hosts[$index] = $val;
		$index++;
	}
	$temp[$desired];
	for($j = 0 ; $j < $desired; $j++)
	{
		$temp[$j] = $hosts[$j][$third] => $hosts[$j];
	}
	$hosts = NULL;
	$hosts = $temp;
	$desired = (int) $desired/2;
	if($desired > 1)
	{
		print '.';
		krsort($hosts);
		$index2 = 0;
		foreach($hosts as $key => $val)
		{
			$hosts[$index2] = $val;
			$index++;
		}
		$temp2[$desired];
		for($p = 0 $p < $desired; $p++)
		{
			$temp[$p] = $hosts[$p][$fourth] => $hosts[$p];
		}
		$hosts = NULL;
		$hosts = $temp;
		$desired = (int) $desired/2;
		if($desired > 1)
		{
			print '.';
			krsort($hosts);
			$index3 = 0;
			foreach($hosts as $key => $val)
			{
				$hosts[$index3] = $val;
				$index++;
			}
		}
	}
}
print '.<br>';
$final[3];
for($f = 0; $f < 3; $f++)
{
	if($hosts[$f] != NULL)
	{
		$final[$f] = $hosts[$f];
	}
}
for($counter = 0; $counter < 3; $counter++)
{
	print $final[$counter][1];
}
//open connections are bad.
mysql_close($link);
print "<br>Connection to database closed.";

$hosts[$i] = $row[$second] => $row; //I GET THE ERROR HERE
Please describe what do you expect this construction to do. I don't understand it and I don't consider it a legal php construction.

I was trying to contruct the array as key value pairs where the key is the value at index $second (which I defined earlier in the script, and is not the second element of the array btw). When I coded it I was looking at the docs for krsort():

<?php
$fruits = array("d"=>"lemon", "a"=>"orange", "b"=>"banana", "c"=>"apple");
krsort($fruits);
foreach ($fruits as $key => $val) {
    echo "$key = $val\n";
}
?>

I'll probably just end up writing my own sorting method that well let me specify the key in a more straight forward way.

usort()
Manuals are written to be read, not just to consume disk space.

Good point. Lets close down the forum and insert a link to cryptic documentation. I figured it out btw (didn't use usort()).