Reduced required PHP version to 7.1 for possible future proc_open r…

…emoval, add shortcut functions

This package is no longer `proc_open` focused as such **symfony/process** changes will not be tracked. Any bug fixes for the fallback methods based on `proc_open`  will be addressed within this package.
- add function to handle base64 being returned by child process
- add function to return Channeled objects

README.md

@@ -93,10 +93,10 @@ $process->displayOn()->run();
 ```php
 include 'vendor/autoload.php';
 
-use Async\Spawn\Channeled;
 use Async\Spawn\ChanneledInterface;
 
-$ipc = new Channeled();
+// return a new `Channeled` instance.
+$ipc = \spawn_channel();;
 
 $process = spawn(function (ChanneledInterface $channel) {
     // Setup the channel resources if needed, defaults to `STDIN`, `STDOUT`, and `STDERR`.

Spawn/Core.php

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 declare(strict_types=1);
 
 use Async\Spawn\Channeled;
+use Async\Spawn\ChanneledInterface;
 use Async\Spawn\Spawn;
 use Async\Spawn\LauncherInterface;
 
@@ -233,6 +234,16 @@ function spawn_result(LauncherInterface $process)
         return $process->getResult();
     }
 
+    /**
+     * return a new **Spawn** based `Channel` instance.
+     *
+     * @return ChanneledInterface
+     */
+    function spawn_channel(): ChanneledInterface
+    {
+        return new Channeled;
+    }
+
     /**
      * Check if a string is base64 valid, or has `encoded` mixed data.
      *
@@ -266,6 +277,21 @@ function is_base64($input): ?bool
         return false;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Check if base64 valid, if so decodes and creates a `PHP` value from the
+     * **serialized** decoded data representation.
+     *
+     * @param string $input
+     *
+     * @return mixed
+     *
+     * @codeCoverageIgnore
+     */
+    function deserialize($input)
+    {
+        return \is_base64($input) ? \unserialize(\base64_decode($input)) : $input;
+    }
+
     /**
      * For use when/before calling the actual `return` keyword, will write some `INVALID` data to standard
      * output and flush, then sleep for `microsecond`, and return the to be encoded `data/result`.

composer.json

@@ -22,9 +22,9 @@
         }
     ],
     "require": {
-        "php": ">7.2",
+        "php": ">7.1",
         "opis/closure": "^3.5.1",
-        "symfony/process": "^5.0.7"
+        "symfony/process": ">4.0.0"
     },
     "autoload": {
         "files": [

tests/ChanneledTest.php

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ protected function setUp(): void
 
     public function testSimpleChanneled()
     {
-        $ipc = new Channeled();
+        $ipc = \spawn_channel();
 
         $process = \spawn(function (ChanneledInterface $channel) {
             $channel->write('ping');