What are some best practices for handling array manipulation in PHP to avoid data loss or duplication?
When manipulating arrays in PHP, it's important to avoid data loss or duplication by using functions that preserve the original array. One way to achieve this is by creating a copy of the array before performing any manipulations. This can be done using the `array_slice()` function to create a copy of the array, ensuring that the original data is preserved.
// Create a copy of the original array before manipulation
$originalArray = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
$copyArray = array_slice($originalArray, 0);
// Manipulate the copy array without affecting the original
array_push($copyArray, 6);
// Output the original and manipulated arrays
print_r($originalArray);
print_r($copyArray);