Transformer

Transform raw input data into consistent, immutable data transfer objects.

Getting Started

Run the following to add Transfromer to your project's composer.json. See Packagist for specific versions.

composer require deefour/transformer

>=PHP5.5.0 is required.

Note: A work-in-progress attempt to explain how I use this package along with deefour/interactor and deefour/authorizer to aide me in application development is available at this gist.

Overview

All transformers extend the abstract Deefour\Transformer\Transformer class.
A tranformer accepts a single array of data during instantiation.
Attributes on the input source can be cast into specific types.
A getter can be created for each attribute to define a transformation of it's raw value.
Methods can be created to provide additional, custom attributes.
The input source on the transformer is immutable.
The transformer can be queried to retrieve transformed versions of individual attributes from the source data or the entire data set.

Example

Let's say the following input data is submitted via a POST request to create a new Book.

$input = [
    'title'            => 'a whole new world',
    'price'            => '29.95',
    'publication_date' => '2010-12-09',
    'author'           => 'Jason Daly',
];

Let's also say that we want to be sure the title of the book has been properly titleized, the price is a float value, and the publication date is a Carbon\Carbon datetime object. The attributes of this raw $input can be formatted in a specific, consistent format using a transformer.

use Deefour\Transformer\Transformer;
use Carbon\Carbon;

class BookTransformer extends Transformer
{
    protected $casts = [
        'price' => 'float',
    ];
    
    protected $defaultValues = [
        'price' => 99.99,
    ];

    public function title()
    {
        return trim(ucwords($this->raw('title')));
    }

    public function publicationDate()
    {
        return Carbon::parse($this->raw('publication_date'));
    }
}

The $casts property is an array composed of attribute names as its keys and the scalar type the attribute should be cast into by the transformer as its values.

The methods are optional, each having public visibility and being named after a camel-cased version of an attribute. These methods will be called whenever those attributes are requested from the transformer.

$transform = new BookTransformer($input);

$transform->get('title');            //=> 'A Whole New World'
$transform->get('price');            //=> 29.95 (cast to a float)
$transform->get('publication_date'); //=> Carbon\Carbon instance

What if the $input doesn't bring a price attribute?

$input = [
    'title'            => 'a whole new world',
    'publication_date' => '2010-12-09',
    'author'           => 'Jason Daly',
];

In this case, the $defaultValues property will be taken into account and the return will be as follows:

$transform = new BookTransformer($input);

$transform->get('title');            //=> 'A Whole New World'
$transform->get('price');            //=> 99.99 (as defined in $defaultValues['price'])
$transform->get('publication_date'); //=> Carbon\Carbon instance

Method Attributes

Public methods marked with @attribute in their docblock are be treated as attributes on the transformer's $attributes source.

class BookTransformer extends Transformer
{
    /**
     * Is the book considered old?
     *
     * @attribute
     * @return string
     */
    public function isOld()
    {
        return $this->publication_date < Carbon::now()->subYears(10);
    }

    /**
     * Is the book nonfiction?
     *
     * @return boolean
     */
    public function internalSlug()
    {
        return sha1($this->title . (string)$this->publication_date);
    }
}

The isOld method is marked with an @attribute annotation in the docblock, causing the transformer to behave as though an is_old attribute exists on the source data. internalSlug() can be called directly, but it will not be treated as some internal_slug attribute because it has not been marked properly with a docblock annotation.

$transform = new BookTransformer([ 'title' => 'A Whole New World' ]);

$transform->get('title');          //=> 'A Whole New World'
$transform->get('is_old')          //=> false
$transformer->get('internal_slug') //=> null

$transform->all();                 //=> [ 'title' => 'A Whole New World', 'is_old' => false ]

Accessing Data

Individual transformed attributes can be retrieved with get().

$transform->get('title');

A magic __get() implementation provides property access to the transformed attributes

$transform->title;

A magic __call() implementation provides method access

$transformer->title();

The existince of a property can be checked through __isset() or the api

isset($transform->title);

$transform->exists('title');
$transform->has('title');
$transform->contains('title');

Transformers also implement ArrayAccess (attempting to set or unset throws an exception).

$transform['title'];

All transformed attributes can be retrieved at once.

$transform->all();

and a specific set of keys can be plucked all at once.

$transform->only('title', 'price'); //=> [ 'title' => 'A Whole New World', 'price' => 29.95 ]

$transform->except('secret_key'); //=> everything except the 'secret_key' attribute.
$transform->omit('secret_key');

The JsonSerializable interface is also implemented.

json_encode($transform); //=> "{'title':'A Whole New World', 'price':29.95, 'publication_date':'2010-12-09 00:00:00', 'author':'Jason Daly'}"

Individual raw attributes or the entire raw source can be retrieved.

$transform->raw('title'); //=> 'a whole new world'
$transform->raw(); //=>  [ 'title' => 'a whole new world', 'price' => '29.95', 'publication_date' => '2010-12-09', 'author' => 'Jason Daly' ]

A default value can be provided to get() as a second parameter. If the default is a callable, it will be evaluated before returning.

$transformer->get('invalid-attribute', 'Not Available'); //=> 'Not Available'
$transformer->get('invalid-attribte', function() { return 'Oops!'; }); //=> 'Oops!'

Mutable Transformers

In the base transformer, __set(), offsetSet, and offsetUnset are all null methods. This (lack of) behavior keeps the underlying source data immutable.

A MutableTransformer class exists which does implement these methods, allowing additional properties to be added to, or existing properties to be modified on the transformer instance.

The __call() method can also be used to set/modify attributes on the transformer.

$transformer = new MutableTransformer([ 'foo' => '1234' ]);

$transformer->foo('abcd');

$transformer->get('foo'); //=> 'abcd'

Instantiation and data access are otherwise identical to the base transformer.

Tracking Changes

When an attribute is modified on a mutable transformer, it's original value is maintained. The transformer can be queried to determine if an attribute has been modified after construction or to retrieve a list of changes.

$transformer = new MutableTransformer([ 'foo' => 'AAA', 'bar' => 'BBB' ]);

$transformer->isDirty(); //=> false

$transformer->foo = 'new value';

$transformer->isDirty(); //=> true
$transformer->dirty(); //=> [ 'foo' ]
$transformer->get('foo'); //=> 'new value'
$transformer->original('foo'); //=> 'AAA'

$transformer->changes(); //=> [ 'foo' => 'new value' ]

Contribute

Issue Tracker: https://github.com/deefour/transformer/issues
Source Code: https://github.com/deefour/transformer

Changelog

1.3.0 - October 16, 2016

The @attribute annotation only needs to be set on methods you wish to be treated as attributes that are not camel-cased versions of attributes that exist on the raw input source.
omit() and without() have been added as aliases for except().
has() and contains() have been added as aliases for exists().

1.0.1 - October 29, 2015

Added except() method.

1.0.0 - October 7, 2015

Release 1.0.0.

0.4.0 - September 7, 2015

Support added for "attribute methods" - methods who's snake-cased equivalent name is not present in the $attributes source, but who are still treated as any other attribute that is present in the $attributes source.
protected methods that should not be treated as "attribute methods" should now be tagged @internal in their docblock.

0.3.0 - September 4, 2015

New change tracking, inspired by yammer/model_attribute

0.2.6 - June 5, 2015

Now following PSR-2.

0.2.5 - June 3, 2015

New __call() functionality providing magic method access to attributes.
get() now handles default values, including closures.

0.2.4 - June 2, 2015

Fixed bugs in the only() method related to nested attributes.

0.2.2 - May 30, 2015

raw() will now return the complete, non-transformed source if no $attribute is specified.
MutableTransformer can now be instantiated without any arguments passed to the constructor.

0.2.1 - May 25, 2015

Improved code formatting.

0.2.0 - May 5, 2015

Made the base transformer a regular class (it used to be abstract).
Added new MutableTransformer.

0.1.0 - April 22, 2015

Initial release.

dgallinari/transformer