<?php
/* Original effort: https://gist.github.com/Daniel15/5991193 */
function last($arr)
{
    eval('list(' . str_repeat(',', count($arr) - 1) . '$result) = $arr;');
    return $result;
}


/* An interesting challenge - what about : */
$list = array('a' => 'fish', 'b' => 'sausage', '&c' => 'whal=asdasd!@£123e');

/**
 * Return the last element of an array AND it's associated key
 * @param array (e.g. [ 23, 4, 5, 'fish' => 'beans' ] etc.)
 *
 * @return array last element of the array (as [$key => $value])
 */

function last_element($array) {
    $string = http_build_query($array);
    preg_match('/(&?([^&=]*)=([^&=]*))$/', $string, $matches);
    $key = urldecode($matches[2]);
    $value = urldecode($matches[3]);
    return array($key => $value);
}
var_dump(last_element($list));