README

1of0/php-serializer

This library provides advanced serialization features built over the PHP json_encode() and json_decode() functions. Most of the features are inspired by the popular .NET library Json.NET.

Installation

This library is available on Packagist, and installable with composer:

composer require 1of0/json

Quick start

The most straightforward way of using this library is using the static methods on the Convert class. The Convert class is a static facade around the singleton instance of the Serializer class.

<?php

use OneOfZero\Json\Convert;
use OneOfZero\Json\Serializer;

// Basic serialization
$json = Convert::toJson($myObject);

// Basic deserialization
$object = Convert::fromJson($json);

// Type hint example
$object = Convert::fromJson($json, \MyNamespace\MyClass::class);

// This is a more verbose form of Convert::toJson($myObject)
$json = Serializer::get()->serialize($myObject);

How does it work?

The serializer takes annotated or XML/YAML/JSON/PHP mapped objects, and pre-processes them before feeding them to the json_encode() function. Inversely, the deserializer feeds the JSON to the json_decode() function, and post-processes the result to get as close a match to the original object (assuming it's properly mapped/annotated).

Documentation

There is ApiGen generated documentation available:

• The minimal documentation excludes documentation for internal classes.
• The full documentation includes internal classes, and can be useful when extending the serializer.

Other documentation and a set of examples is being worked on. If you need help getting something to work, or if something is not clear, don't hesitate to file an issue.

Features

Mappers and mapper chaining

The serializer and deserializer behaviour can be influenced with mappings on classes and class members. This library supports mappings with:

• Annotations
• XML
• YAML
• JSON
• PHP

These mappers can be chained in any order to provide a single merged mapping.

Embedded type information

This is a feature inspired by the zumba/json-serializer library.

By default the serializer will embed type information in serialized objects. The type information allows the deserializer to deserialize a JSON object into its original type without PHPDoc, annotations or mappings.

The embedded data is the additional @type property that holds the fully qualified class name of the serialized object:

{
	"@type": "MyNamespace\\MyClass",
	"propertyA": "valueA",
	"propertyB": "valueB",
	...
}

Serialization

The embedding of type information can be disabled for individual classes with class-level mappings, or can disabled globally in the configuration:

<?php
$configuration->embedTypeMetadata = false;

Deserialization

Due to security concerns the deserializer only deserializes whitelisted types (by default this whitelist is empty). Classes can be added to the whitelist through the configuration:

<?php
$configuration->getMetaHintWhitelist()->allowClass(MyClass::class);

You can also whitelist by namespace, class inheritance, or regex. See the API documentation of the MetaHintWhiteList class for details.

Object and member converters

Much like Json.NET's custom converters, this library also allows you to build and specify custom converters for specified properties.

Contract resolver

Another feature that was loosely ported from Json.NET is the contract resolver. A contract resolver allows you to dynamically manipulate the serialization mapping for every node in the (de)serialization tree. An example use-case for a contract resolver is conversion of property names.

Serialization groups

(not implemented yet)

Reference properties

You might often deal with sub-objects that you don't want to serialize, but rather just reference. This library can serialize and deserialize references like that. To achieve this:

• The referenced object needs to implement the ReferableInterface interface
• The property that holds the referenced object has to be marked with the @IsReference annotation
• A reference resolver needs to exist that supports the referenced object (and needs to implement the ReferenceResolverInterface interface)

Bugs and feature requests

Please post any bugs and feature requests to the issue tracker on GitLab.

Also don't hesitate to file an issue if the documentation is lacking.

License

The library is licensed under the MIT license, of which the full text can be found in the LICENSE file.