This doesn't have anything to do with associative arrays and everything to
do with "test" and quoting.

On Wed, Apr 17, 2024 at 2:37 PM limited time <burnermail4now@gmail.com>
wrote:

> % zsh -f
> % typeset -A array=(key1 value1 key2 value2);
> test $array[key1] ; echo $? ;
> test $array[key2] ; echo $? ;
>

These two are "test somestring" which is defined as true.


> test $array[key3] ; echo $? ;
> test $array[key4] ; echo $? ;
>

These two are just "test" (with no arguments at all, because key3 and key4
have no value) which is defined as false.


> if test $array[key1] -a $array[key2] ; then
>   echo "Condition evaluated to true" ;
> fi
>

This is "test string -a string" which is true because neither string is
empty.


> if test $array[key3] -a $array[key4] ; then
>   echo "Condition evaluated to true" ;
> fi
>

This is "test -a" because both expansions are empty and not quoted so they
disappear from the command line entirely.

By definition, "test -a" is treated as "test somestring" and is true.