Discussion on: Never use array_merge in a loop

[Ben Sinclair]

I try to avoid anything like this in PHP because I always have to look up what the difference is between array_merge and the + operator, and what order to use parameters in and which bits are going to be OO today and which bits aren't. It's just horrible.

I didn't even know there was a spread operator in PHP!

[Ben Sinclair]

Ah, it looks like it's been in PHP since 5.6 as an argument unpacker but only been able to unpack general arrays since 7.4.

[Jose Maria Valera Reales]

Well, you can use it for versions <7.4 as:

$merged = array_merge([], ...array_values($lists));

Check it out: sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/cod...

And from 7.4, array_merge accept no arguments, therefore we can use it without the empty array as first arg:

$merged = array_merge(...array_values($lists));