In PHP, what are the recommended best practices for handling array manipulation and merging operations?

When handling array manipulation and merging operations in PHP, it is recommended to use built-in array functions such as array_merge, array_merge_recursive, and array_combine. These functions help to efficiently merge or manipulate arrays without the need for complex loops or custom functions.

// Example of merging two arrays using array_merge
$array1 = [1, 2, 3];
$array2 = [4, 5, 6];
$mergedArray = array_merge($array1, $array2);
print_r($mergedArray);