php-serialize is a powerful attribute-based serialization library for PHP (requires PHP ≥ 8.1).
It allows you to map objects to arrays/JSON and automatically generate OpenAPI documentation based on the same attributes.
🚀 Unified solution for API data serialization and documentation generation.
- 🏷️ Property aliasing with
- 🔄 Automatic type casting (e.g.
DateTime ↔ string) - 🔁 Deep object nesting support
- ❌ Skip/exclude fields with
- 🧩 Recursive DTO serialization
- 🧬 Auto-generate OpenAPI schema using object definitions
- ⚙️ Framework-agnostic — works with Laravel, Symfony, etc.
Run vendor/bin/phpbench run benchmarks/ --bootstrap=vendor/autoload.php
PHPBench (1.4.1) running benchmarks... #standwithukraine
with PHP version 8.4.8, xdebug ❌, opcache ❌
benchObjectCreation.....................I4 ✔ Mo117.841μs (±3.09%)
benchObjectCreationWithoutCache.........I4 ✔ Mo284.568μs (±0.71%)
benchObjectToArray......................I4 ✔ Mo62.883μs (±0.56%)
benchObjectToArrayWithoutCache..........I4 ✔ Mo211.700μs (±0.84%)Install using Composer:
composer require astral/php-serializeuseAstral\Serialize\Serialize;
class User extends Serialize {
publicstring$name,
public int $age
}
// Create object from array$user = User::from([
'name' => 'John Doe',
'age' => 30
]);
// Access object propertiesecho$user->name; // Output: John Doeecho$user->age; // Output: 30// Convert to array$userArray = $user->toArray();
// $userArray contents:// [// 'name' => 'John Doe',// 'age' => 30// ]- Immutability: Read-only properties cannot be modified after construction
useAstral\Serialize\Serialize;
class User extends Serialize {
publicfunction__construct(
publicreadonlystring$name,
publicreadonlyint$age
) {}
}
$user = User::from([
'name' => 'John Doe',
'age' => 30
]);
try {
$user->name = 'Jane Doe'; // Compile-time error: cannot modify read-only property
} catch (Error$e) {
echo"Read-only properties cannot be reassigned";
}- Type-Safe Initialization
$user = User::from([
'name' => 123, // Integer will be converted to string'age' => '35'// String will be converted to integer
]);
echo$user->name; // Output: "123"echo$user->age; // Output: 35- Constructor Initialization
useAstral\Serialize\Serialize;
class User extends Serialize {
publicfunction__construct(
publicreadonlystring$name,
publicreadonlyint$age
) {
// Can add additional validation or processing logic in the constructorif (strlen($name) < 2) {
thrownew \InvalidArgumentException('Name is too short');
}
}
}useAstral\Serialize\Serialize;
class UserAddRequest extends Serialize {
publicstring$name;
publicint$id;
}
class UserDetailRequest extends Serialize {
publicint$id;
}useAstral\Serialize\Serialize;
class UserDto extends Serialize {
publicstring$name,
public int $id;
}useAstral\Serialize\Serialize;
useAstral\Serialize\OpenApi\Enum\MethodEnum;
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\Tag('User Module Management')]
class UserController {
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\Summary('Create User')]
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\Route('/user/create')]
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\RequestBody(UserAddRequest::class)]
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\Response(UserDto::class)]
publicfunctioncreate() {
returnnewUserDto(); }
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\Summary('User Detail')]
#[\Astral\Serialize\OpenApi\Annotations\Route(route:'/user/detail', method: MethodEnum::GET)]
publicfunctiondetail(UserDetailRequest$request): UserDto {
returnnewUserDto();
}
}Navigate to the project root directory first:
docker run -v $PWD/vendor/astral/php-serialize/src/OpenApi/Frankenphp/Caddyfile:/etc/frankenphp/Caddyfile -v $PWD:/app -p 8089:80 dunglas/frankenphpAccess http://127.0.0.1:8089/docs to view the documentation.
