note 98386 deleted from function.array-merge by cmb

Note Submitter: jpakin at gmail dot com ---- I had a hard time using array_merge with large datasets. By the time my web framework was in memory there wasn't enough space to have multiple copies of my dataset. To fix this I had to remove any functions which operated on the data set and made a copy in memory (pass by value). I realize the available memory to an application instance is modifiable, but I didn't think I should have to set it below the default 16mb for a web app! Unfortunately, a number of php functions pass by value internally, so I had to write my own merge function. This passes by reference, utilizes a fast while loop (thus doesn't need to call count() to get an upper boundary, also a php pass by value culprit), and unsets the copy array (freeing memory as it goes). <?php function mergeArrays(&$sourceArray, &$copyArray){ //merge copy array into source array $i = 0; while (isset($copyArray[$i])){ $sourceArray[] = $copyArray[$i]; unset($copyArray[$i]); $i++; } } ?> This fixed the problem. I would love to know if there is an even faster, more efficient way. Simply adding the two arrays won't work since there is an overlap of index.