Two-parter. Question/Opinions please.

[icehawg]

Question:
If I want to update a part of an array, do I need to rebuild the array or can I just specify a new value for the key?

For example -

$fruit = array(
type => 'apple',
color => 'red',
taste => 'sour',
shape => 'round'
) ;

Can I now say $fruit["taste"] = "sweet"; or do I have to rebuild the array to shove the "sweet" into the taste or is walking the array a better solution?

Opinion
Is it better to have one big table or many smaller tables?

Say, for example I need to capture .. um...40 pieces of information on a user in the database.

Which is better, generally speaking, to do with a mySQL database?

1 table with 40 fields.
2 tables with 20 fields each.
4 tables with 10 fields each.

?

Thanks for your time everyone.

[superwormy]

You can just specify a new value for that one key.

$fruit['taste'] = "sweet";