Associative array from querystring in bash?

How do I get an associative array from a query string in Bash? - Attempt:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# Querystring (implementation stolen from http://stackoverflow.com/q/3919755)

function populate_querystring_array ()
{
    param="$1"
    query_dict="$2"
    #for i in "${array[@]}"; do IFS="=" ; set -- $i; query_dict[$1]=$2; done

    for ((i=0; i<${#param[@]}; i+=2))
    do
        query_dict[${param[i]}]=${param[i+1]}
    done
}

q0='email=foo@bar.com&password=dfsa54'
declare -A querydict
populate_querystring_array "$q0" "$querydict"
printf "$querydict[email]"

Below should work:

#!/bin/bash

function qrystring() {
    qry=$1

    while read key value; do
        arr+=(["$key"]="$value")
    done < <(awk -F'&' '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) {print $i}}' <<< $qry | awk -F'=' '{print $1" "$2}')
}

q='email=foo@bar.com&password=dfsa54'
declare -A arr

qrystring "$q"

for k in ${!arr[@]}; do
    echo "$k -> ${arr[$k]}"
done

Explanation:

Im using a combination of awk commands to split the string into individual records first, then split on the = sign for kv pair.

I'm using process substitution here otherwise i would be populating a copy of the array.

EDIT:

Using a global variable to house array.