Serializing PHP object to JSON

Question

So I was wandering around php net for information about serializing PHP objects to JSON  when I stumbled across the new JsonSerializable Interface  It s only PHP    5 4 though  and I m running in a 5 3 x environment   How is this sort of functionality achieved PHP  lt  5 4   I ve not worked much with JSON yet  but I m trying to support an API layer in an application  and dumping the data object  that would otherwise be sent to the view  into JSON would be perfect   If I attempt to serialize the object directly  it returns an empty JSON string  which is because I assume json encode   doesn t know what the heck to do with the object  Should I recursively reduce the object into an array  and then encode that     Example   data   new Mf Data     data- gt foo- gt bar  hello      world     echo json encode  data  produces an empty object        var dump  data  however  works as expected   object Mf Data  1  5         values   Mf Data  private   gt    array 0             children   Mf Data  private   gt    array 1         0   gt      array 1            foo    gt        object Mf Data  2  5               values   Mf Data  private   gt          array 0                         children   Mf Data  private   gt          array 1               0   gt            array 1                  bar    gt              object Mf Data  3  5                     values   Mf Data  private   gt                array 1                     0   gt                  array 1                        hello    gt                    string 5   world                                                     children   Mf Data  private   gt                array 0                                     parent   Mf Data  private   gt                 RECURSION                   key   Mf Data  private   gt                string 3   bar                   index   Mf Data  private   gt                int 0                                                 parent   Mf Data  private   gt           RECURSION             key   Mf Data  private   gt          string 3   foo             index   Mf Data  private   gt          int 0                         parent   Mf Data  private   gt    NULL      key   Mf Data  private   gt    NULL      index   Mf Data  private   gt    int 0        Addendum  1   So this is the toArray   function I ve devised for the Mf Data class   public function toArray          array    array   this      array walk recursive  array  function   amp  property            if   property instanceof Mf Data                 property    property- gt toArray                          return  array      However since the Mf Data objects also have a reference to their parent  containing  object  this fails with recursion  Works like a charm though when I remove the  parent reference   2   Just to follow up  the final function to transform a complex tree-node object I went with was      class name - Mf Data    exlcuded properties -   parent    index public function toArray          array   get object vars  this       unset  array   parent     array   index         array walk recursive  array  function   amp  property            if  is object  property   amp  amp  method exists  property   toArray                   property    property- gt toArray                          return  array      3   I m following up again  with a bit cleaner of an implementation  Using interfaces for an instanceof check seems much cleaner than method exists    however method exists   does cross-cut inheritance implementation    Using unset   seemed a bit messy too  and it seems that logic should be refactored into another method  However  this implementation does copy the property array  due to array diff key   so something to consider   interface ToMapInterface        function toMap         function getToMapProperties        class Node implements ToMapInterface        private  index      private  parent      private  values   array         public function toMap                  array    this- gt getToMapProperties            array walk recursive  array  function   amp  value                if   value instanceof ToMapInterface                     value    value- gt toMap                                      return  array             public function getToMapProperties                 return array diff key get object vars  this   array flip array               index    parent

User · Answer

In the simplest cases type hinting should work    json   json encode   array  object

User · Answer

I made a nice helper class which converts an object with get methods to an array  It doesn t rely on properties  just methods   So i have a the following review object which contain two methods   Review   getAmountReviews   int getReviews   array of comments   Comment   getSubject getDescription   The script I wrote will transform it into an array with properties what looks like this               amount reviews  21        reviews                        subject   In een woord top 1              description   Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet  consectetur adipiscing elit  Pellentesque laoreet lacus quis eros venenatis  sed tincidunt mi rhoncus  Aliquam ut pharetra diam  nec lobortis dolor                                  subject   En een zwembad 2              description   Maecenas et aliquet mi  a interdum mauris  Donec in egestas sem  Sed feugiat commodo maximus  Pellentesque porta consectetur commodo  Duis at finibus urna                                  subject   In een woord top 3              description   Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet  consectetur adipiscing elit  Pellentesque laoreet lacus quis eros venenatis  sed tincidunt mi rhoncus  Aliquam ut pharetra diam  nec lobortis dolor                                  subject   En een zwembad 4              description   Maecenas et aliquet mi  a interdum mauris  Donec in egestas sem  Sed feugiat commodo maximus  Pellentesque porta consectetur commodo  Duis at finibus urna                                subject   In een woord top 5              description   Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet  consectetur adipiscing elit  Pellentesque laoreet lacus quis eros venenatis  sed tincidunt mi rhoncus  Aliquam ut pharetra diam  nec lobortis dolor              Source  PHP Serializer which converts an object to an array that can be encoded to JSON   All you have to do is wrap json encode around the output   Some information about the script    Only methods which starts with get are added Private methods are ignored Constructor is ignored Capital characters in the method name will be replaced with an underscore and lowercased character

User · Answer

Try using this  this worked fine for me   json encode unserialize serialize  array

User · Answer

Just implement an Interface given by PHP JsonSerializable

User · Answer

json encode   will only encode public member variables  so if you want to include the private once you have to do it by yourself  as the others suggested

User · Answer

Since your object type is custom  I would tend to agree with your solution - break it down into smaller segments using an encoding method  like JSON or serializing the content   and on the other end have corresponding code to re-construct the object

User · Answer

I spent some hours on the same problem  My object to convert contains many others whose definitions I m not supposed to touch  API   so I ve came up with a solution which could be slow I guess  but I m using it for development purposes   This one converts any object to array  function objToArr  o     s     lt  php class base       public static function   set state  array            return  array          function   autoload  class        eval  class  class extends base          a     var export  o true     var export  a       f      tmp   uniqid     php   file put contents  f  s   chmod  f 0755    r   eval  return   shell exec  php -f    f        unlink  f   return  r      This converts any object to stdClass  class base       public static function   set state  array            return  object  array          function objToStd  o     s     lt  php class base       public static function   set state  array             o   new self          foreach  array as  k   gt   v   o- gt  k    v          return  o          function   autoload  class        eval  class  class extends base          a     var export  o true     var export  a       f      tmp   uniqid     php   file put contents  f  s   chmod  f 0755    r   eval  return   shell exec  php -f    f        unlink  f   return  r

User · Answer

edit  it s currently 2016-09-24  and PHP 5 4 has been released 2012-03-01  and support has ended 2015-09-01  Still  this answer seems to gain upvotes  If you re still using PHP  lt  5 4  your are creating a security risk and endagering your project  If you have no compelling reasons to stay at  lt 5 4  or even already use version    5 4  do not use this answer  and just use PHP   5 4  or  you know  a recent one  and implement the JsonSerializable interface    You would define a function  for instance named getJsonData     which would return either an array  stdClass object  or some other object with visible parameters rather then private protected ones  and do a json encode  data- gt getJsonData      In essence  implement the function from 5 4  but call it by hand   Something like this would work  as get object vars   is called from inside the class  having access to private protected variables   function getJsonData         var   get object vars  this       foreach   var as  amp  value            if  is object  value   amp  amp  method exists  value  getJsonData                   value    value- gt getJsonData                        return  var

User · Answer

Following code is doing the job using reflection  It assumes you have getters for the properties you want to serialize       lt  php                 Serialize a simple PHP object into json        Should be used for POPO that has getter methods for the relevant properties to serialize        A property can be simple or by itself another POPO object               Class CleanJsonSerializer             class CleanJsonSerializer                   Local cache of a property getters per class - optimize reflection code if the same object appears several times         var array             private  classPropertyGetters   array                     param mixed  object         return string false             public function serialize  object                return json encode  this- gt serializeInternal  object                           param  object         return array             private function serializeInternal  object                if  is array  object                  result    this- gt serializeArray  object             elseif  is object  object                  result    this- gt serializeObject  object             else                result    object                    return  result                         param  object         return  ReflectionClass             private function getClassPropertyGetters  object                 className   get class  object           if   isset  this- gt classPropertyGetters  className                   reflector   new  ReflectionClass  className                properties    reflector- gt getProperties                 getters   array                foreach   properties as  property                                 name    property- gt getName                     getter    get    ucfirst  name                   try                        reflector- gt getMethod  getter                        getters  name     getter                    catch   Exception  e                           if no getter for a specific property - ignore it                                              this- gt classPropertyGetters  className     getters                    return  this- gt classPropertyGetters  className                          param  object         return array             private function serializeObject  object             properties    this- gt getClassPropertyGetters  object            data   array            foreach   properties as  name   gt   property                         data  name     this- gt serializeInternal  object- gt  property                       return  data                         param  array         return array             private function serializeArray  array                 result   array            foreach   array as  key   gt   value                 result  key     this- gt serializeInternal  value                     return  result

User · Answer

Change to your variable types private to public  This is simple and more readable   For example  Not Working   class A     private  var1  valuevar1      private  var2  valuevar2      public function tojson        return json encode  this           It is Working   class A     public  var1  valuevar1      public  var2  valuevar2      public function tojson        return json encode  this

User · Answer

My version   json encode self  toArray  ob     Implementation   private static function toArray  object         reflectionClass   new  ReflectionClass  object         properties    reflectionClass- gt getProperties          array           foreach   properties as  property             property- gt setAccessible true            value    property- gt getValue  object           if  is object  value                  array  property- gt getName      self  toArray  value             else                array  property- gt getName       value                      return  array      JsonUtils   GitHub

[php] Serializing PHP object to JSON

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