How to convert this PHP array into a JavaScript array?

var nursery_rhyme=new Array("mary", "had", "a", "little", "lamb");

As others mentioned, the curly/smart quotes are invalid.

You can get the JavaScript representation of most simple PHP structures by running the data through json_encode():

php> echo json_encode(array("mary", "had", "a", "little", "lamb"))
["mary","had","a","little","lamb"]

var nursery_rhyme = ["mary", "had", "a", "little", "lamb"];

var nursery_ryhme = ["mary", "had", "a", "little", "lamb"];

Closest JS translation:

$nursery_rhyme = new Array("mary", "had", "a", "little", "lamb");

Notice:

• no var is needed
• you can still use the $