In some situations, the union operator ( + ) might be more useful to you than array_merge. The array_merge function does not preserve numeric key values. If you need to preserve the numeric keys, then using + will do that.
ie:
<?php
$array1[0] = "zero";
$array1[1] = "one";
$array2[1] = "one";
$array2[2] = "two";
$array2[3] = "three";
$array3 = $array1 + $array2;
$array3 = array(0=>"zero", 1=>"one", 2=>"two", 3=>"three");
?>
Note the implicit "array_unique" that gets applied as well. In some situations where your numeric keys matter, this behaviour could be useful, and better than array_merge.
--Julian
