README

IncompleteClassAccessor

Class to access ALL properties of a __PHP_Incomplete_Class

PLEASE NOTE: This is a proof of concept and not ment to be used in production software.

Use case

• You have an object serialized and stored to e.g. the database.
• Time is passing by and the underlying class has been modified, moved or deleted.
• You read the serealized object from your storage and receive a __PHP_Incomplete_Class object.
• You want to read the object's properties, even those which are private.

PHP build-in

• PHP does not provide a convenient way to read private properties from such an object. ReflectionClass does not publish any of the properties.
• The available unserialize_callback_func only lets you load an apropriate class by name (which may not exist anymore).

What IncompleteClassAccessor does

• Reads the name of the original class from the __PHP_Incomplete_Class object.
• It serializes the __PHP_Incomplete_Class object.
• It modifies the resulting serialized string to convert the __PHP_Incomplete_Class object to a stdClass object.
• It unserializes the modified string and reads all (now accessable) object properties into a key-value array.
• If a property value itself is a __PHP_Incomplete_Class object, it creates an instance of IncompleteClassAccessor for this value. (So it is recursive.)

Example usage

<?php

namespace MyVendor\MyProject;

use hollodotme\IncompleteClassAccessor\IncompleteClassAccessor;

# 1. Read some serialized object
$serialized = file_get_contents( '/tmp/serialized.txt' );

# 2. Unserialize
$unserialzed = unserialize( $serialized );

# 3. Check for __PHP_Inclomplete_Class
if ( $unserialzed instanceof \__PHP_Inclomplete_Class )
{
    $accessor = new IncompleteClassAccessor( $unserialized );
 
    # Print the original class name
    echo $accessor->getOriginalClassName();
    
    # Print all properties
    print_r( $accessor->getProperties() );
    
    # Print a single property
    echo $accessor->getProperty( 'someProperty' );
}

You are now able to map the old serialized object to an apropriate new one.