<p>
Converting a slice to an array yields an array containing the elements of the underlying array of the slice.
Similarly, converting a slice to an array pointer yields a pointer to the underlying array of the slice.
In both cases, if the <a href="#Length_and_capacity">length</a> of the slice is less than the length of the array,

* API fields that previously serialized null arrays as `null` and empty arrays as `[]` no longer distinguish between those values and always output `[]` when serializing to JSON. ([#43422](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/43422), [@liggitt](https://github.com/liggitt))

  optional string operator = 2;

  // An array of string values. If the operator is In or NotIn,
  // the values array must be non-empty. If the operator is Exists or DoesNotExist,
  // the values array must be empty. If the operator is Gt or Lt, the values
  // array must have a single element, which will be interpreted as an integer.
  // This array is replaced during a strategic merge patch.
  // +optional

- EndpointSliceNodeName will always be enabled, so NodeName will always be available in the v1beta1 API. ([#99746](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/99746), [@swetharepakula](https://github.com/swetharepakula)) [SIG Apps and Network]

  * Strategic Merge Patch

    * Reference docs now display the patch type and patch merge key used by `kubectl apply` to merge and identify unique elements in arrays.

      * `kubectl edit` and `kubectl apply` will keep the ordering of elements in merged lists ([#45980](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/45980), [@mengqiy](https://github.com/mengqiy))

- resource.k8s.io/ResourceClaim (alpha API): The strategic merge patch strategy for the `status.reservedFor` array was changed so that a strategic-merge-patch can now add individual entries. This change may break clients using strategic merge patch to update status, which rely on the previous behavior (replacing the entire array).
   ([#122276](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122276), [@pohly](https://github.com/pohly))

- Removed the `CronJobTimeZone` feature gate (the feature is stable and always enabled)
  - Removed the `JobMutableNodeSchedulingDirectives` feature gate (the feature is stable and always enabled)

* ✨ Update `ORJSONResponse` to support non `str` keys and serializing Numpy arrays. PR [#3892](https://github.com/tiangolo/fastapi/pull/3892) by [@baby5](https://github.com/baby5).

### Fixes

* Scheduling conformance tests related to daemonsets should set the annotation that relaxes node selection restrictions, if any are set. This ensures conformance tests can run on a wider array of clusters. ([#68793](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/68793), [@aveshaga...

- CRDs can have fields named `type` with value `array` and nested array with `items` fields without validation to fall over this. ([#85223](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85223), [@sttts](https://github.com/sttts))

### Apps