Simple utility to unbox complex data structures (objects) to native data types, suitable for encoding (for example, JSON).

Documentation

Code of Conduct

This project includes and adheres to the Contributor Covenant as a Code of Conduct.

Supported Types

This library returns all scalar and null values as-is, plus recursively processing all array (and stdClass) types.

When this library encounters an object that is an instance of a known type, it will attempt to convert it by using the return value of a specific method. Object types supported by this library out-of-the-box include:

• Dates (objects implementing DateTimeInterface) which are converted to strings according to RFC3339 (eg, 2019-02-05T12:15:32+00:00).
• Timezones (objects implementing DateTimeZone) which result in a string containing the timezone name (eg, America/Vancouver).
• Exceptions and errors (objects implementing Throwable) which result in a string containing the exception message.
• JSON (objects implementing JsonSerializable) which result in the library recursively iterating over the JSON data returned.
• Doctrine collections (objects implementing Collection interface) which result in the library iterating over each of the items inside the collection.

Additionally, any user-land object can implement UnboxableInterface. Similar to JsonSerializable::jsonSerialize() method, the __unbox method can return anything as a representation of its internal state. It is recommended to return unboxable objects as-is, as everything returned from UnboxableInterface::__unbox is recursively iterated over anyway.

Brief Example

<?php declare(strict_types=1);

use Darsyn\Unboxer\Unboxer;
use Darsyn\Unboxer\UnboxableInterface;
use Darsyn\Unboxer\UnboxingException;

class Group implements UnboxableInterface {
    public function __construct(
        private string $name
    ) {}

    public function __unbox() {
        return $this->name;
    }
}

class Options implements \JsonSerializable {
    public function __construct(
        private bool $active,
        private bool $verified,
        private \DateTimeZone $timezone
    ) {}

    public function jsonSerialize() {
        return [
            'active' => $this->active,
            'verified' => $this->verified,
            'tz' => $this->timezone,
        ];
    }
}

class Member implements UnboxableInterface
{
    private ArrayCollection $groups;

    public function __construct(
        private int $id,
        private string $username,
        array $groups = [],
        private ?Options $options = null
    ) {
        $this->groups = new ArrayCollection($groups);
    }

    public function __unbox()
    {
        return [
            // Scalars are used as-is.
            'id' => $this->id,
            'username' => $this->username,
            // Objects of known types are returned as-is, but recursively iterated over.
            'groups' => $this->groups,
            // JSON-serializable objects are never actually run through json_encode().
            'options' => $this->options ?: [],
        ];
    }
}

$member = new Member(123, 'dr-evil', [
    new Group('admin'),
    new Group('moderator'),
    new Group('sharks-with-lasers'),
], new Options(true, false, new \DateTimeZone('America/Vancouver')));

try {
    $output = (new Unboxer)->unbox($member);
    var_dump($output);
} catch (UnboxingException $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage();
}

var_dumping the variable $output results in:

array(4) {
  'id' =>
  int(123)
  'username' =>
  string(7) "dr-evil"
  'groups' =>
  array(3) {
    [0] =>
    string(5) "admin"
    [1] =>
    string(9) "moderator"
    [2] =>
    string(18) "sharks-with-lasers"
  }
  'options' =>
  array(3) {
    'active' =>
    bool(true)
    'verified' =>
    bool(false)
    'tz' =>
    string(17) "America/Vancouver"
  }
}

Note that returning multiple nested unboxable objects will result in the output collapsing down into a single value:

<?php declare(strict_types=1);

use Darsyn\Unboxer\Unboxer;
use Darsyn\Unboxer\UnboxableInterface;
use Darsyn\Unboxer\UnboxingException;

$data = new class implements UnboxableInterface {
    public function __unbox() {
        return new class implements UnboxableInterface {
            public function __unbox() {
                return new class implements UnboxableInterface {
                    public function __unbox() {
                        return new \RuntimeException('Error Message');
                    }
                };
            }
        };
    }
};

try {
    $output = (new Unboxer)->unbox($data);
    var_dump($output);
} catch (UnboxingException $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage();
}

string(13) "Error Message"

Extending

Additional known object types can be added by extending Unboxer and overriding the getKnownDataTypes method. For each known object type, either a closure or an array specifying which method to call on the object may can specified:

<?php declare(strict_types=1);

use Darsyn\Unboxer\Unboxer;

class MyUnboxer extends Unboxer {
    protected function getKnownDataMethods(): iterable {
        // Don't forget to return the known data methods defined in the original, parent Unboxer.
        // The parent returns an array, but any iterable is acceptable.
        yield from parent::getKnownDataMethods();

        // Config array example.
        // Must be in the format ['methodToCall', ['optional', 'arguments', 'array']].
        yield \DateTimeInterface::class => ['format', [\DateTimeInterface::RFC3339]];

        // Closure example.
        yield \DateTimeInterface::class => function (\DateTimeInterface $date): string {
            return $date->format(\DateTimeInterface::RFC3339);
        };
    }
}

The unboxer will, by default, convert any objects with the __toString() magic method to a string. To turn this functionality off, extend Unboxer and override the class constant STRINGIFY_OBJECTS.

<?php declare(strict_types=1);

use Darsyn\Unboxer\Unboxer;

class MyUnboxer extends Unboxer {
    public const STRINGIFY_OBJECTS = false;
}

License

Please see the separate license file included in this repository for a full copy of the MIT license, which this project is licensed under.

Authors

• Zan Baldwin

If you make a contribution (submit a pull request), don't forget to add your name here!