title: Convert string with no delimiters into associative multidimensional array
body: <p>I need to parse a string that has no delimiting character to form an associative array.</p>
  <p>Here is an example string:</p>
  <pre><code>*01the title*35the author*A7other useless infos*AEother useful infos*AEsome delimiters can be there multiple times
  </code></pre>
  <p>Every &quot;key&quot; (which precedes its &quot;value&quot;) is comprised of an asterisk (*) followed by two alphanumeric characters.
  I use this regex pattern: <code>/\*[A-Z0-9]{2}/</code></p>
  <p>This is my <code>preg_split()</code> call:</p>
  <pre><code>$attributes = preg_split('/\*[A-Z0-9]{2}/', $line);
  </code></pre>
  <p>This works to isolate the &quot;value&quot;, but I also need to extract the &quot;key&quot; to form my desired associative array.</p>
  <p>What I get looks like this:</p>
  <pre><code>$matches = [
      0 =&gt; 'the title',
      1 =&gt; 'the author',
      2 =&gt; 'other useless infos',
      3 =&gt; 'other useful infos',
      4 =&gt; 'some delimiters can be there multiple times'
  ];
  </code></pre>
  <p>My desired output is:</p>
  <pre><code>$matches = [
      '*01' =&gt; 'the title',
      '*35' =&gt; 'the author',
      '*A7' =&gt; 'other useless infos',
      '*AE' =&gt; [
          'other useful infos',
          'some delimiters can be there multiple times',
      ],
  ];
  </code></pre>