UNDOCUMENTED BEHAVIOR:

    list($a,$b,$c) = null;

in fact works like:

    $a = null; $b = null; $c = null;

...So correspondingly:

    list($rows[]) = null;

Will increment count($rows), just as if you had executed $rows[] = null;

Watch out for this (for example) when retrieving entire tables from a database, e.g.

    while (list($rows[]) = $mysqlresult->fetch_row());

This will leave an extra 'null' entry as the last element of $rows.