mindplay/jsonfreeze
Serialize and unserialize a PHP object-graph to/from a JSON string-representation., (*1)
, (*2)
Overview
This library can serialize and unserialize a complete PHP object-graph to/from a
JSON string-representation., (*3)
This library differs in a number of ways from e.g. json_encode()
, serialize()
,
var_export()
and other existing serialization libraries, in a number of important
ways., (*4)
Please see here for detailed technical background information., (*5)
The most important thing to understand, is that this library is designed to store
self-contained object-graphs - it does not support shared or circular object-references.
This is by design, and in-tune with good DDD design practices. An object-graph with
shared or circular references cannot be stored directly as JSON, in a predictable format,
primarily because the JSON data-format is a tree, not a graph., (*6)
Usage
Nothing to it., (*7)
use mindplay\jsonfreeze\JsonSerializer;
$serializer = new JsonSerializer();
// serialize to JSON:
$string = $serializer->serialize($my_object);
// rebuild your object from JSON:
$object = $serializer->unserialize($string);
Custom Serialization
You can define your own un/serialization functions for a specified class:, (*8)
$serializer = new JsonSerializer();
$serializer->defineSerialization(
MyType::class,
function (MyType $object) {
return ["foo" => $object->foo, "bar" => $object->bar];
},
function (array $data) {
return new MyType($data["foo"], $data["bar"]);
}
);
Note that this works only for concrete classes, and not for abstract classes or
interfaces - serialization functions apply to precisely one class, although you
can of course register the same functions to multiple classes., (*9)
Date and Time Serialization
The DateTime
and DateTimeImmutable
classes have pre-registered un/serialization
functions supporting a custom format, in which the date/time is stored in the common
ISO-8601 date/time format in the UTC timezone, along with the timezone ID - for example:, (*10)
{
"#type": "DateTime",
"datetime": "1975-07-07T00:00:00Z",
"timezone": "America\/New_York"
}