According to the PHP Manual, calling array_map with a NULL callback causes it to perform a \"zip\" function, creating an array of arrays of paralle
array_map
NULL
If you really want to avoid the array_merge, use array_unshift to prepend the NULL to the $array_of_arrays instead:
array_merge
array_unshift
$array_of_arrays
array_unshift($array_of_arrays, NULL); call_user_func_array('array_map', $array_of_arrays);
Of course it is not a one-liner anymore :P