What is the process for reading data from a .ini file into an associative array in PHP?

When reading data from a .ini file into an associative array in PHP, you can use the built-in `parse_ini_file()` function. This function parses the contents of a .ini file and returns an associative array where the keys are section names and the values are key-value pairs within each section.

// Read data from a .ini file into an associative array
$ini_data = parse_ini_file('config.ini', true);

// Access the data using associative array syntax
echo $ini_data['section_name']['key_name'];