HELP WITH LIST TEMPLATES

I am trying to come up with a function that you can pass it two variables, an associative array of data and a format you want a list to be in: The function would then iterate through the array and build each list item as specified by the format. A format could be something like: <a href="$array_name["link_field"]">$array_name["field_1"] or $array_name["field_5"]</a> where the array would have multiple entries each having associative array positiions of link_field, field_1, and field_2 does anyone have any insight? Thanks Chris