Combine two arrays

The new way of doing it with php7.4 is Spread operator [...]

$parts = ['apple', 'pear'];
$fruits = ['banana', 'orange', ...$parts, 'watermelon'];
var_dump($fruits);

Spread operator should have better performance than array_merge

A significant advantage of Spread operator is that it supports any traversable objects, while the array_merge function only supports arrays.

If you are using PHP 7.4 or above, you can use the spread operator ... as the following examples from the PHP Docs:

$arr1 = [1, 2, 3];
$arr2 = [...$arr1]; //[1, 2, 3]
$arr3 = [0, ...$arr1]; //[0, 1, 2, 3]
$arr4 = array(...$arr1, ...$arr2, 111); //[1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 111]
$arr5 = [...$arr1, ...$arr1]; //[1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3]

function getArr() {
  return ['a', 'b'];
}
$arr6 = [...getArr(), 'c']; //['a', 'b', 'c']

$arr7 = [...new ArrayIterator(['a', 'b', 'c'])]; //['a', 'b', 'c']

function arrGen() {
    for($i = 11; $i < 15; $i++) {
        yield $i;
    }
}
$arr8 = [...arrGen()]; //[11, 12, 13, 14]

It works like in JavaScript ES6.

See more on https://wiki.php.net/rfc/spread_operator_for_array.

Warning! $array1 + $array2 overwrites keys, so my solution (for multidimensional arrays) is to use array_unique()

array_unique(array_merge($a, $b), SORT_REGULAR);

Notice:

5.2.10+ Changed the default value of sort_flags back to SORT_STRING.

5.2.9 Default is SORT_REGULAR.

5.2.8- Default is SORT_STRING

It perfectly works. Hope it helps same.

https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.array-merge.php

<?php
$array1 = array("color" => "red", 2, 4);
$array2 = array("a", "b", "color" => "green", "shape" => "trapezoid", 4);
$result = array_merge($array1, $array2);
print_r($result);
?>