Req->Doc #73576 [Opn->Csd]: Create array_concat alias for array_merge

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73576&edit=1 ID: 73576 Updated by: cmb@php.net Reported by: ian at ianchanning dot com Summary: Create array_concat alias for array_merge -Status: Open +Status: Closed -Type: Feature/Change Request +Type: Documentation Problem Package: Arrays related Operating System: N/A PHP Version: 5.6.28 -Assigned To: +Assigned To: cmb Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: Okay, closing then per my comment above. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2021-12-19 19:33:54] carusogabriel@php.net Not suggesting anything here, my bad changing the type of the bug ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2021-12-15 17:19:13] cmb@php.net The first sentence of the description is (emphasis mine): | Merges the elements of one or more arrays together so that the | values of one are *appended* to the end of the previous one. "Append" is, in my opinion, even clearer than "concatenate". I don't see that the documentation could be improved here. However, Gabriel changed this back to feature request. Are you suggesting we should actually introduce an alias for array_merge()? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2017-05-18 00:47:08] pollita@php.net This is more of a documentation issue IMO. Some better wording on the manual pages of the array section may help out, but there's no need to further pollute the global namespace with aliases. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2016-11-21 22:01:27] ian at ianchanning dot com Description: ------------ There is no documented array concatenation function. This is a very common function, e.g. Javascript and Ruby have the concat function, Python has + and Haskell has ++. The array_merge function (http://php.net/manual/en/function.array-merge.php) is what has be used if you want to concatenate arrays. However it is not mentioned in the documentation (not even in the comments) of that method that that is what should be used. I propose that array_concat be created as an alias of array_merge. The concatenation of an associative array is also consistent with trying to merge the hash maps. For example this Stack Overflow question on [concatenating two dictionaries](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1781571/how-to-concatenate-two-dictionaries-to-create-a-new-one-in-python#1784128) is marked as a duplicate of the function 'How to merge two Python dictionaries'. That is, it is consistent that hash map concatenation is the same as hash map merging. So I believe that array_concat is a perfect alias for array_merge in terms of numeric arrays and a valid (albeit unnecessary) alias for associative arrays. This will help almost all developers coming to PHP from other dynamic languages. Test script: --------------- <?php var_dump(array_concat(array('London'), array('Calling'))); ?> Expected result: ---------------- array(2) { [0]=> string(6) "London" [1]=> string(7) "Calling" } ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=73576&edit=1