"... as is standard across PHP, you can use NULL to skip to the flags parameter" is not correct.
With PHP 7.1 and declare(strict_types=1), specifying NULL for "limit" will not "skip" to the flag. The result is:
"TypeError: preg_split() expects parameter 3 to be integer, null given".
Instead of NULL, you DO need to specify an explicit integer limit, as in 0 or -1, if no limit is wanted.