Problem with array_merge in PHP5

[gere]

After my host switched to PHP 5 I have received this error from a few different pages: 2: array_merge() [function.array-merge]: Argument #2 is not an array.
I read from somewhere that this is a common problem when updating to PHP5 but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. The code below is from yabbse, I have the same problem with couple of more scripts so it would be great if someone could help me how to fix it

function OptimizeTables()
{
   global $db_name, $webmaster_email, $txt, $yytitle;

   $message = '';
   $yytitle = $txt['yse281'];
   template_header();

   $query = "SHOW TABLE STATUS FROM `$db_name`";
   $get_tables = mysql_query($query) or database_error(__FILE__, __LINE__);
   $num_tabs = mysql_num_rows($get_tables);

   $output_handling = array();
   $mail_message = array();

   $head = $txt['yse282'] . $num_tabs . ' ' . $txt['yse282b'];
   $output_handling = array($head);

   if(0 < $num_tabs)
   {
      $x = $txt['yse283'];
      $output_handling = array_merge($output_handling, $x);

  $k = 0;
  $i = 0;

  while($table = mysql_fetch_array($get_tables))
  {
 $tableName = mysql_tablename($get_tables, $i);

 $datalength = $table['Data_length'];
 $indexlength = $table['Index_length'];
 $length = $datalength + $indexlength;
 $length = $length / 1024;
 $length = round ($length, 3);

 $freedata = $table['Data_free'];
 $freedata = $freedata / 1024;
 $freedata = round ($freedata, 3);

 //optimize
 $query = "OPTIMIZE TABLE ".$tableName;
 $resultat  = mysql_query($query) or database_error(__FILE__, __LINE__);

 if($freedata == 0)
    $k++;
 else
 {
    $x = "optimize: $tableName .... $freedata $txt[yse284]\n";
    $output_handling = array_merge($output_handling, $x);
    $mail_message = array_merge($mail_message, $x);
    $opttab++;
 }
 $i++;
  }
  $cnt = $num_tabs - $k;

  if($cnt == 0)
 $output_handling = array_merge($output_handling, '<br />' . $txt['yse285']);
  else
  {
 $x = "<br /> " . $opttab . $txt['yse286'];
 $output_handling = array_merge($output_handling, $x);
  }
   } // end if

   echo "<br /><br />";
   $ret =  array_values($output_handling);
   foreach ($ret as $var)
      echo "$var<br />";

   $ret =  array_values($mail_message);
   $array_cnt = count($mail_message);
   foreach ($ret as $var)
      $message .= $var;
   if($array_cnt == 0)
      $message = $txt['yse285b'];

   //mail($webmaster_email, $txt['yse281'], $message, "From: $webmaster_email\r\n");

   footer();
   obExit();

}

[Weedpacket]

Originally posted by gere
I read from somewhere that this is a common problem when updating to PHP5 but I couldn't figure out how to fix it.

Well, I don't know about it being a "common problem when updating to PHP5" - I'd certainly never heard of it before doing research for your problem - but I don't see how the two lines

$x = "optimize: $tableName .... $freedata $txt[yse284]\n";
        $output_handling = array_merge($output_handling, $x); 

should work, because $x is obviously not an array. Prior to PHP5, they were turned into arrays (effectively by putting array(...) around them) first (see the user notes on the [man]array_merge[/man] manual page for details). But, really, it is a silly approach, because it just makes for a lot of extra work to do something that could have been done with less code in the first place - probably why I've never heard of the problem.

Assuming all those things are strings, and $output_handling is supposed to be an array (as it is initialised as such) then the lines like

$output_handling = array_merge($output_handling, $x); 

should be

$output_handling[] = $x;