What are the potential pitfalls of merging arrays in PHP, especially when dealing with data from different sources like functions and databases?

When merging arrays in PHP, especially when dealing with data from different sources like functions and databases, potential pitfalls include duplicate keys overriding existing values, unexpected data types causing errors, and unintentional data loss. To avoid these issues, it's important to carefully handle the merging process, ensuring data integrity and consistency. 

// Example code snippet for safely merging arrays in PHP
$array1 = ['key1' => 'value1', 'key2' => 'value2'];
$array2 = ['key2' => 'new_value2', 'key3' => 'value3'];

// Use the "+" operator to merge arrays without overriding existing keys
$mergedArray = $array1 + $array2;

// Output the merged array
print_r($mergedArray);

Keywords

merging arrays PHP data sources functions databases

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