What are the best practices for initializing and manipulating arrays in PHP?

When initializing and manipulating arrays in PHP, it is important to follow best practices to ensure clean and efficient code. To initialize an array, you can use the array() function or the shorthand [] syntax. When manipulating arrays, use built-in functions like array_push(), array_pop(), array_shift(), and array_unshift() to add or remove elements. Additionally, array functions like array_merge() and array_slice() can be used to combine or extract elements from arrays.

// Initializing an array using array() function
$myArray = array('apple', 'banana', 'orange');

// Initializing an array using shorthand [] syntax
$myArray = ['apple', 'banana', 'orange'];

// Adding an element to an array
array_push($myArray, 'grape');

// Removing the last element from an array
array_pop($myArray);

// Combining two arrays
$newArray = array_merge($myArray, ['kiwi', 'watermelon']);